RED NINJA: THE MOVIE 3 Film Collection (1967)

How cool would it have been to grow up in a country and culture where they actually made decent and fun live-action kid's shows where the heroes were ninjas and it was explicitly stated up front that the heroes killed their enemies? That's just what Japanese kids got when Toei's KAMEN NO NINJA AKAKAGE ("Akakage, the Masked Ninja") debuted, and its over-the-top and often anachronistic content went over big with the audience. And while us round-eyes were no strangers to crazy Japanese live-action superhero fare — thanks to daily after school airings of ULTRAMAN, JOHNNY SOKKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT, SPACE GIANTS, and SPECTREMAN — Akakage's show never made it to the States, presumably because of its (mild) sword-related violence and the occasional gruesome deaths of its villains. (A nasty immolation springs to mind.) Too bad, because its creator, manga legend Mitsteru Yokoyama, already had a massive fan following in the States thanks to GIGANTOR (though that American iteration did not credit him as its creator) and capitalizing on the popularity of that animated giant robot cult favorite might have gotten some American distributor's attention (though the show would have definitely required some cuts here and there for violence).

Yuzaburo Sakaguchi as stylish ninja Akakage.

Yeah, the stuff the Japanese found suitable for children would never have flown here in its uncut form and that's a shame because Akakage — whose name translates as "Red Shadow" — is a hero very much cut from the same wholesome cloth as our own homegrown Lone Ranger (complete with mask that barely obscures his features yet somehow allows him not to instantly be recognized). He's dutiful, extremely capable, kind, loyal to his friends and the good guy feudal lords who employ  his services, and he rocks a bitchin' hairdo and stylish red scarf, so he's a perfect role model for impressionable kiddies. Plus, he kicks truckloads of ass!

A typical day at work for Akakage, and he isn't even impressed with himself.

Aided by his partners, cheery veteran ninja Shirokage ("White Shadow," played by Fuyukichi Maki) and kid ninja Aokage ("Blue Shadow," played by Yoshinobu Kaneko, kid brother of fellow child actor  Mitsunobu Kaneko of JOHNNY SOKKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT renown), Akakage fearlessly takes on all manner of weirdo cults, sorcerers, assassins, thieves, and even giant monsters, with tons of mayhem ensuing in the process, all in steadfast service to keep Japan safe and free. And while the series may not have aired in the U.S., a number of theatrical films were cobbled together from multi-episode arcs of the show and dubbed for release in English-speaking countries. I have no accurate information on when that would have occurred but by the sound of some of the familiar actors voicing the characters, voice actors I recognize from scores of Shaw Brothers kung fu flicks that played theatrically and on TV in the U.S. from roughly the mid-1970's through the early 1980's, I'd guess they were released internationally around 1980 through perhaps 1982. That would have been the perfect time in which to capitalize on the public's fascination with ninjas in the wake of hit low-budget movies like the American-made ENTER THE NINJA and REVENGE OF THE NINJA. Those films particularly captured the imaginations of kids who were too young to get in to see the R-rated thrills contained therein, so the movies made from the old Toei ninja kiddie show were just the thing to scratch that itch. Renaming Aokage as "Watari" in an attempt to cash-in on the name recognition of the character played by Kaneko in the very popular 1966 kid's fantasy film WATARI THE NINJA BOY — a film I'm not sure got much release outside of Japan, though it did play in Italy — and naming at least two of the films after Watari, the movies were unleashed upon an international audience and only made it to American video shelves three years ago. Being a fan of Japanese superhero shows and also being familiar with the image of Akakage after years of seeing him in magazines and items bearing his likeness at conventions (though I did not then know his name), I picked up the DVD on a whim because it cost less than ten bucks and listed itself as containing three movies. A bargain, right?

Well, released under the title RED NINJA, the DVD is a two-sided collection that allows American viewers our first good look at Akakage and his pals, and I have to report that it's a pretty mixed bag. The material's TV origins are readily apparent and I don't see that aspect being a problem for those of us of a certain age who were raised on this kind of program, but modern audiences may be put off by the perceived cheapness that was part and parcel with live-action Japanese superhero shows of its era. Also, the episodic nature of the strung-together serialized installments can cause the narrative to just go on and on and on, which can lead to tedium in spite of there being a lot of action. And when viewed in a concentrated dose, Akakage's adventures come off like one brain-dead action set-piece after another while the already minimal and kiddie-simplistic plots become more or less beside the point.

As for the characters, I really, really liked Akakage and would be willing to see the rest of this series in its original form. His partners, the elder Shirokage and the tweener Aokage, form with Akakage a potentially interesting "three ages of the ninja" dynamic, but that aspect is not really explored, save for Shirokage occasionally teasing or chiding Aokage for being an undisciplined kid (he doesn't really mean it). Shirokage's a lot of fun, being uncharacteristically cheerful for an  elder master of over-the-top ninjutsu, and his signature move is to whip out a huge kite that he and Aokage often ride into the sky to give battle against ridiculous airborne foes. Aokage, as expected for a show of its vintage, is another in the very long line of incredibly annoying child characters in Japanese fare. It's definitely a cultural thing (or at least it used to be) and it's particularly grating to the sensibilities of most American fans of this genre. Aokage, while a capable ninja warrior and spy, is often portrayed doing broadly-cutesy and "funny" things, sometimes in fast-motion accented with "wacky" music, and those antics bring the narratives to a dead halt. While the series was a wild, over-the-top melange of superhero adventure stories, ninja and samurai tropes, giant monsters, and quest/mission tales, the forced humor just does not fit in with the rest of the ingredients.

When taken at face value for what they are, Akaage's adventures can be acceptable cheesy fun, but I recommend breaking each film up into twenty-minute segments and watching them in such increments over the course of a few days rather than in one sitting. That way they don't become tedious and you won't be subjected to Aokage's buffoonery in saturation doses.

But the one thing the potential buyer of this set needs to know is that while it bills itself as containing three movies, that's not exactly the case. Side A of the sole disc contains NINJASCOPE: THE MAGIC WORLD OF NINJAS, which introduces us to Akakage and his teammates, while Side B features WATARI THE CONQUEROR and WATARI AND THE FANTASTIKS. The snag here is that the latter two are exactly the same movie, with the only difference being that they have different titles. My theory on this is that perhaps that film went out to different territories for theatrical release under different titles and the issuers of this DVD set didn't bother to note that they were the same movie. Either that or the company knew what was up and didn't care, figuring that the cheap price of the item would mitigate the dishonesty. Whatever the case may be, if you buy it you only get two movies. And of the films on the disc, I'd say the dual-titled film on Side B is the more entertaining one, though NINJASCOPE does include a giant fire-breathing toad monster that's about a notch or two better than most of the creatures found in one of the era's Daiei Gamera series. Smoke a few bonghits and kick back a few beers, and they're an okay way to kill some time.  

THE BODYGUARD (1976)

After years of being available in a crappy pan-and-scan print, the Americanized version of 1973's Sonny Chiba opus KARATE KIBA is available in a nice widescreen edition, proving once and for all that a gilded turd is still a turd.

This grindhouse mainstay opens with the following narrated text crawl:

"The path of the righteous man and defender is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the father of lost children.

"And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious anger, who poison and destroy my brothers; and they shall know that I am CHIBA the BODYGUARD when I lay my vengeance upon them.

"Ezekiel 25:17"

Sound familiar? It should if you've seen PULP FICTION, since Quentin Tarantino, a notorious Sonny Chiba groupie, lifted it (Surprise!) for duty as Sam Jackson's thoroughly badassed signature line in that film.

Anyway, THE BODYGUARD is a dull waste of time that has pretty much the least amount of martial arts I've ever seen in a film allegedly of the martial arts genre. As a matter of fact, the flick's more of a routine crime flick that features Chiba — whose character's name, "Kiba," is re-dubbed "Chiba" so we're supposed to think the movie's a document of Sonny's day-to-day adventures — as an international crimefighter/bodyguard/badass-for-hire who announces on live TV that he's out to take down the mob and other such drug-dealing punks after he singlehandedly thwarts an airplane hijacking by Mafia goons, which is odd since every single supposed Mafioso in evidence is played by a Japanese guy).

Chiba's live TV demonstration of his badassery.

In no time Chiba finds himself bodyguarding a mysterious woman (Judy Lee) who gives him not one shred of information as to who she is or why she needs protection from the armed killers who dog her every step, and the resulting plot is so turgid that even us die-hard Sonny Chiba fans just will not care. The characters jump from one scene of standing around and gabbing about deceptions and double-crosses to another, filling the screen with endless talking heads while it should rightfully be filled with images of Chiba beating the motherfucking piss out of all comers while gouging out their eyeballs and tearing off their nuts with his bare hands every three minutes. The camerawork is often amateurishly hand-held, the bane of seventies Japanese action flicks, and the whole thing comes off as less lively than any given episode of a routine cop show. By the time we find out that Chiba's client was the mistress of a slain Mafia capo and is doing her damnedest to get her hands on a cool million's-worth of heroin so she make a final big score, most audience members will have turned off the DVD or fallen asleep.

The one almost-decent action scene features Chiba on the other side of a closed door, a barrier he punches through to grab the arm of a guman; once the gunman's limb is secure in his grasp, Chiba gives the guy a nasty, bone-protruding compound fracture and then rips off said limb for later use as a throwing weapon. That sequence takes up maybe two minutes out of a total of nearly ninety, and from that bit of business to the next set-to it's a long, dry haul.

So basically THE BODYGUARD sucks ass. I've tried about five times over the years to sit through it in its entirety while sober, having made it all the way through once in the early nineties while drunk out of my mind after coming home from eight hours of hard drinking at Bar X (a favorite hangout of the Marvel Bullpen in those days), and I was only able to make it through last night because of the widescreen format allowing me to see shots and compostions that were cut off and thereby rendered incomprehensible by the pan-and-scan VHS version. Needless to say, I'd missed absolutely nothing.

'70's-era martial artists Aaron Banks and Bill Louie: Unintentionally the most entertaining aspect of the American version of this film.

The only thing keeping this sleep aid in my collection is a mind-boggling bit of nonsense tacked onto the early moments of the film by the American distributor: a hand-held camera's point-of-view wanders the then-sleazy streets of Manhattan's Times Square, eventually staggering up the stairs of a martial arts studio. In this dojo with walls papered with 42nd Street grindhouse karate movie posters stands Bill Louie, an apparently Hispanic martial artist in a stylish sweatsuit — he's a dead ringer for Freddie Prinze, the guy from TV's CHICO & THE MAN, not his son who starred in SCOOBY-DOUCHE and other like crap — who hands out ass-whuppings on what I presume are his students, all while doing his best impression of Bruce Lee's moves and cat-in-a-vise screeches. Observing this is Aaron Banks, a Semitic/Italian-looking dude in a karate gi, who notes upon Louie's completion of his fit of Bruce-ism, in a John Wayne/Brooklyn accent no less, "Thats pretty good. But here's how Sonny Chiba woulda done it." Banks then launches into full-on post-THE STREET FIGHTER Chiba histrionics, savagely assaulting a couple of students, one of whom he suspends off the mat by a good grip on the guy's clockweights, after which he puts his fist to the face of the other poor bastard with a jump-cut that makes it look like the dude's being hit by a flesh-and-bone sledge hammer. Composing himself, Banks stands up and Louie comments, "Yeah, but Bruce had more speed and science. He'd probably have done something like this..." Louie stoops and picks up a pair of matched nunchaku — or "chucks," if you prefer — then launches into a totally gratuitous display with them while shrieking like a madman, culminating in him catching the flails under his arms and uttering a triumphant and Flip Wilson-esque "WHOOOO!" Banks looks thoughtful and says, "Yeah...I can see your point." (I can't.) "By the way, where is Sonny Chiba?" He and Louie contemplate that question for a moment, chins in hands and practically saying, "Hmmm..." at which point the actual movie lurches to a start. I've seen this sequence many times and, much moreso than the arm-removal, it's the only genuinely entertaining moment in the entire film. Avoid THE BODYGUARD like you'd avoid having one of those handheld apple-corers shoved up your anus. TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

"I'm gonna kick my own ass for starring in this piece of shit!"

THE CHALLENGE (1982)

The 1980's were a generally terrible period for western-made martial arts movies, featuring an assortment of bland Chuck Norris vehicles and a glut of almost uniformly awful ninja movies, but one quality American production slipped through the cracks and is largely forgotten today, despite the considerable talent that went into its making. That film is 1982's THE CHALLENGE, directed by John Frankenheimer (RONIN), scripted by John Sayles (THE HOWLING), and starring Scott Glenn (THE RIGHT STUFF) opposite legendary Kurosawa leading man Toshiro Mifune, (SEVEN SAMURAI, THRONE OF BLOOD, RED BEARD) and considering how across-the-board good it is, I'd like to know why the hell it took so fucking long to get a legitimate release on DVD. THE CHALLENGE had a virtually non-existent theatrical run — under this title, as well as THE EQUALS and SWORD OF THE NINJA — and a blink-and-you-missed-it VHS release, so was there some orchestrated conspiracy to keep this ignored classic out of the moviegoing public's eye?

Not-so-lovable loser Rick (Scott Glenn), the film's ugly American.

The story follows Rick, a so-so has-been-who-never-was of a boxer who's pretty much relegated to being a punching bag of a sparring partner in an LA boxing gym. The guy's unrefined muscle, which is exactly what a Japanese paraplegic hires him to be during a trip to Japan on an errand to return a rare sword to his family, one half of a pair dubbed "the Equals." But what looked to be a piece of cake bodyguarding gig quickly goes sour when Rick finds himself in the middle of a decades-long and deadly-bitter feud between two sides of a noble family, with each faction seeking to possess the reunited swords. On one side there's master-warrior good guy Teru Yoshida (Toshiro Mifune) and his forest-dwelling martial disciples, while the villain of the piece is Teru's modernized (read "evil") asshole of a corporate-head brother, Hideo (Atsuo Nakamura), who's a samurai badass in his own right and who also has an assortment of yakuza killers and a heavily armed private army at his disposal. Upon reaching Japan, Rick is paid and given his walking papers, but the bad guys stop him before he reaches the airport and make him an offer he can't refuse: infiltrate Teru's order, pretend to be interested in learning his ways and, once ensconced as a disciple, steal Teru's sword and hand it over to Hideo. Oh, and refusal to comply equals death on the spot, so what's a guy to do?

Rick very reluctantly joins Teru's group of old school budoka and endures their rigorous training, learning much of the mental, physical, and spiritual disciplines that make Teru and his followers both practical, hardcore badasses and "pure" embodiments of the warrior ethic, all the while keeping an eye open for an opportunity to make off with the sword. When that moment comes, Rick leaves the mountain retreat with the weapon in hand but there's enough decency within him to make him turn around and return, apologizing for his lapse in behavior — and then seeing that his every step was dogged by concealed, expert archers who at any moment during his escape attempt could easily have made sure he'd never have gotten away alive — after which he butches up and immerses himself into his training in earnest, finding his way as both a warrior and a man in the process. There's also a rather unnecessary romantic subplot in which Rick falls in love with Teru's daughter (Donna Kei Benz), but I guess if she wasn't around to get kidnapped by the bad guys there wouldn't have been an excuse for Teru and Rick to storm Hideo's corporate fortress and hand out gory ass-kickings and disembowelings like Halloween candy.

And at this point I guess it's fair to include a SPOILER WARNING: IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW THE FILM ENDS, KINDLY SKIP THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS.

The final fifteen minutes or so of the film are a spectacular culmination to the inter-familial war that had been brewing, no two ways about it. Having fought their way up the various levels of Hideo's corporate building after taking out dozens of guards who were armed with machine guns, the heroes confront Hideo in his study and the moment when the brothers must duel to the death is at hand, so Hideo orders all of his troops to stand down. The master swordsmen begin their duel as Rick and Teru's daughter watch in breathless silence, but the fight is cut short when one of Hideo's overzealous henchmen — a nasty piece of work named Ando — shoots Teru in the shoulder, interrupting the sanctity of the brother-against-brother battle. A furious Hideo beheads Ando on the spot and expresses regret to Teru that their fated skirmish didn't play out as he would have liked, but the now-purified Rick picks up Teru's sword, thereby representing his master's teachings, and steps in to take Teru's place.

Perhaps the most unfair sword fight in movie history.

Insanely overmatched, Rick enters the fray and is immediately chased all over the study like a three-legged mouse avoiding a healthy and vicious tomcat, taking considerable damage as he resorts to fighting dirty, using everything from a stapler to a bookcase as defensive weapons. It soon becomes clear that there's no fucking way Rick will survive this fight unless he gets very, very lucky, so when Hideo's sword gets stuck in a cubicle-divider after a sword thrust, Rick seizes the moment and cuts Hideo's head in half, right down to the neck. The camera then cuts back to the wounded Teru and his daughter, both of whom notice the lack of combat noise from the other room and now expect the worst. The pair are visibly shocked to see a bloodied and staggering Rick emerge with the Equals, at which point he composes himself enough to lay the weapons at his master's feet and kneel in front of the old man, the very picture of Zen serenity. THE END.

What impressed me most about that scene was how it finally played out: Even though Rick soundly defeated Hideo, the heroes would still probably never leave the building alive or would likely face incarceration for multiple counts of homicide at the very least, but that's not what's important here. The Equals were reunited and the morally upstanding characters made it happen, and that's all that matters, with Rick's journey being crucial to the outcome. And unlike dozens of other martial arts films I could name, Rick doesn't evolve overnight into a guy who could take on scores of bad guys with a sword and his fists, instead embracing the spirit of a warrior and coupling that with his street smart, anything goes pugilistic skills when push came to shove. When I first saw THE CHALLENGE and witnessed Rick about to take on Hideo I exclaimed, "Oh, get the fuck outta here!," but I was pleasantly surprises to see that filmmakers didn't buy it either and instead had Rick get his ass handed to him in no uncertain terms until he seized that fortuitous split-second opportunity.

Everything about this movie works — I'll let the romance angle slide — and it holds the viewer riveted from start to finish, so why did THE CHALLENGE languishing in totally undeserved obscurity for over three decades? I don't understand it and if you ever get to see it for yourself, neither will you.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES (2012)

Alan Ford as Ray Macguire, perhaps the most badassed granddad in cinema history.

In London's East End, a a questionable group of (mostly) well-intentioned working class criminals plan and execute a bank robbery, the spoils of which are earmarked to prevent the demolition of a home for old age pensioners where the beloved granddad of the robbery's masterminds is spending his autumn years. Upon making off with 2.5 million pounds, the robbers exit the bank and find themselves in the middle of a full-blown zombie infestation, a state of affairs caused when a construction company discovers and opens a vault where zombies were entombed in the 1600's. Once the first zombie tastes construction worker flesh, the undead plague spreads exponentially and in no time the East End is a living nightmare populated by hordes of ravenous revenant flesh-eaters and the living who are trapped with them once the government contains the infestation by sealing off the area. With all hell breaking loose around them, the robbers prepare to head to the old folks' home with the intent to rescue the trapped geezers, but first they must contend with the reckless and homicidal madness of one of their crew, Mental Mickey (played to the brain-damaged hilt by Ashley Bashy Thomas), the pair of hostages he takes, and other assorted mishaps. When they finally make it to the seniors, the hinted-at hard nature of several of the old folks comes to the fore as the robbers and the pensioners fight their way out with enough firepower to stage the coup of a small third world nation.

A few months ago, when I first heard of the British COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES, I was intrigued by its potential as a character piece set during a zombie outbreak. The setup involving the pensioners looked like a great idea because instead of the now rote zombie shooting gallery tropes that are now a part of the horror story playbook, we would see how senior citizens, people whose bodies and agility had fallen victims to the  infirmities wrought by the aging process, would handle an ever-advancing maelstrom of famished fiends. As the story progresses, we're shown just how fucking tough some of the seniors are, especially foul-mouthed alpha fogey Ray Maguire (Alan Ford, whose Bricktop from SNATCH is now something of a cult hero), who was apparently some kind of fearsome gangster back in the days. No details about exactly what Ray and his cronies got up to during their heyday but it's made quite clear that there were illegal dealings aplenty and Ray and friends were not afraid to get murderous if it suited their agendas. That kind of character setup greatly appealed to me, plus the film was a zombie infestation comedy, British-style, so I eagerly anticipated the film getting a release in the States. Any film that might vie for the crown of the beloved SHAUN OF THE DEAD stood to be of interest and a potential ton of fun.

Unfortunately COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES, while not terrible by any means, is rather a disappointment. The comedy is mostly tepid — and I say that as a lifelong lover of British humor — the younger characters are far less interesting than their elders, and while it's great to see Alan Ford's performance as Ray, the film pretty much squanders the presence of Honor Blackman as Peggy, whose level of comfort with an AK-47 raises many questions that receive not even the tiniest crumb of an answer. I can't speak for the rest of you but Honor Blackman has been one of my favorite actresses since I was a kid, thanks to her turn as Hera in the Ray Harryhausen masterpiece JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), and her role as the infamously-monikered Pussy Galore in the Connery-era James Bond classic GOLDFINGER (1964), the part for which she will never be forgotten. As of this writing she's 87 years old and still as bright-eyed and charming as ever, so her relatively limited screen time was both disappointing and a waste of a great opportunity. 

 Honor Blackman, age 87 and still kicking ass.

Nonetheless, she does sort out zombies with a heavy mallet and the aforementioned machine gun, plus we get to hear her say "fuck," so it's not a total loss.

While SHAUN OF THE DEAD has nothing to fear from it, COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES does include a few genuinely inspired bits, chief among which is the ultra-slow chase scene involving a hobbling ancient codger (Richard Briers) on a walker being pursued by an equally-snail-paced zombie, and the creative use of an orally-administered hand grenade. 

 The film's most inspired moment.

And enough cannot be said of Alan Ford as Ray. He's far and away the character everyone who sees this film will remember and root hardest for, and I wish he'd been the film's straight-up protagonist. Aged though he may be, Ray is one tougher-than-leather East End motherfucker and you'd better believe he's not going to tolerate legions of zombies fucking up his town.

The bottom line on this one is that it's worth sitting through for Ray and a few bright spots, but don't believe the online hype about it from its native U.K. The reviews I saw COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES online describe it as "fantastic" and "hilarious," so I wonder if that level of enthusiasm for it has to come from being part of the culture that spawned it and having a familiarity with and ingrained understanding of Cockneys as simply another flavor of being English and not as poorly-depicted and often badly-acted stereotypes/caricatures. I'll give the characters this: they are definitely not the broad and stale Cockney sitcom types that Americans have seen over the decades, and the more natural human approach was definitely welcome. Anyway, I give the film a grudging recommendation for zombie completists and followers of the horror-comedy sub-genre. As previously stated, it's not a bad movie, just flawed and more than a bit of a misfire. That said, there are infinitely worse ways to pass 87 minutes. (Provided you can find it, that is. The film has yet to receive a U.S. release, theatrical or on DVD/Blu-Ray.)

Cover art for the U.K. DVD release.

THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK (2010)

July 2nd, 1863: At a small farm outside Bent Fork, Virginia, the grossly-outmatched (at a rate of fifty-three to one) 13th Rhode Island regiment faced and defeated a massive Confederate force bent on staging a sneak attack on Washington, an herculean military routing that tested the leadership, thinking-out-of-the-box ingenuity, dogged tenacity and the general fearlessness of its four principal Union officers. Yet while many of the Civil War's military engagements remain prominent in the public's consciousness, this set-to, known as "The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek," has faded into the mists of obscurity. Fortunately, documentarian Grace A. Burns has crafted a fascinating act of cinematic archaeology with this feature-length examination of those Union-saving heroes.

The four principal figures in a forgotten chapter of American history: (L-R) Li Shau-zu, Colonel Jonathan Franklin Hale, Elijah Swan, Rowena Harris/Nick Brody. 

The film's narrative goes into considerable detail on its subjects' back-stories, aided by commentary from a number of distinguished historians, rendering them into more than mere historical footnotes to the viewer. The four now-obscure soldiers whose efforts staved off the potentially devastating attack were:

• Colonel Jonathan Franklin Hale, a twenty-four-year-old cross-dressing homosexual, infamous and persecuted within the military for his rakish deportment and insistence upon freshly-laundered uniforms for his men. Sent to West Point at sixteen, Hale was forged into a leader while enjoying every moment of the riding, drilling, stylish dress, and camaraderie of other like-minded young men, and though of Georgian origin, Hale held to his vows as a soldier of the one nation when the South opted to secede, a move that put him at direct odds with his lover, one Sinclair Whittier, a proud officer of the Confederacy. (The film traces the trajectory of that relationship.)
• Li Shao-zu, an aged warrior who joined the Chinese military at a very young age and fought the British in the opium wars. Skipping out on his "lousy, drug-pushing whore" of a a wife who was doing a brisk drug-trading business in opposition to her husband's anti-British efforts, Li made his way to the States with the intention of getting rich during the Gold Rush, but instead found success as a pioneer in the laundry industry, eventually serving as a launderer for the U.S. Army and forging a friendship with Colonel Hale. His bravery and military experience — to say nothing of his innovations in dry cleaning chemical engineering — placed Li in a position that would make him vital to the 13th Rhode Island's martial success.
• Elijah Swan, the result of a liaison between a wood-chopping slave and the jungle-fever-ridden wife of the slave's owner, whose early life was marked by the effects of his mother's many questionable decisions. Cast into the hardship of slavery upon the deaths of his mother and her husband (a fanatical and abstinent Calvinist whose poor vision allowed him to somehow believe that the obviously black child was his own spawn), Elijah eventually escaped and built upon his pre-enslavement education, revealing himself to be a mathematical, scientific and engineering genius.
• Rowena Harris (aka Rowena Oaks, aka Candie Apple, aka "Poison" Apple, aka Nick Brody), the battle's most tenacious hero. A poor and once-innocent young woman who found herself thrust first into sexual slavery and then child-prostitution at the hands of the unscrupulous pimp Beauregard Ridge, Rowena, after proving herself a voracious trollop when it came to making cash from the lust of men, sought sociopathically-motivated vengeance upon Ridge with the focus of a Fury straight out of Greek mythology when her former pimp made off with all of the money she'd saved while in his employ (along with that of all of the other whores in his stable) and joined the Confederate forces in Arkansas. Adopting the identity and uniform of drowned drummer boy Nick Brody, Rowena's quest for retribution was derailed upon her left arm being amputated following catching a bullet. Adrift after that tragedy, Rowena/Nick switched sides and ended up under the command of Col. Hale, who saw nothing odd about having a one-armed drummer boy in his regiment (a decision that may have been influenced by Hale's growing opium addiction). It was during this time that Rowena/Nick experienced a full-on speaking-in-tongues mystical vision, the first of several that aided in guiding the 13th Rhode Island to its celebrated (and swiftly swept under the rug) destiny at Pussy Willow Creek.

But what exactly occurred at the battle of Pussy Willow Creek and just why was it so instrumental in the Union's eventual winning of the Civil War? There's a lot to that answer, and it's best left for the curious to discover for themselves.

The byzantine paths of the disparate figures weave together in a most compelling and improbable tapestry that illustrates just what glorious results can come from a confluence of "misfits" and those derided by general society, and rescues their story from the rubbish heap of history deemed unworthy of celebration by virtue of its protagonists' lack of an heroic image in keeping with the usual "all-American" image as perceived by its era. Packed with vintage daguerreotype images, excerpts from letters written by several of the principals and those who knew them, and seasoned with music and songs from the period, THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK comes from out of nowhere to join the ranks of such celebrated documentaries as ZELIG (1983), C.S.A.-THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA (2004) and Marti DiBergi's epochal THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984), and if its merits can be judged by the company it finds itself amongst, THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK stands as an achievement to be reckoned with...

Aaah, who am I kidding? THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK is actually a straight-faced "mockumentary" written, directed and produced by Wendy Jo Cohen, and is a work of such verisimilitude that one could be forgiven for being snowed by its earnest recounting of a battle that never happened, led as it was by "a drug-addicted faggot, a geriatric heathen, a nerdy nigger, and a crazy, one-armed teenaged whore." Starting out utterly deadpan, the film slowly builds in sheer ridiculousness that ends up as a finely-layered narrative depicting just how badly the groups represented by its protagonists got fucked up the ass without benefit of Astro Glide by the nation they fought for, and its content is just as hilarious as it is riveting. Highly recommended and definitely not to be missed, the film will be screened at Manhattan's Quad Cinema from March 1st through the 7th, so here's the theater's info:

The Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY
(212) 255-2243

Click here for the theater's website and more information. (And speaking of websites, click here for THE BATTLE OF PUSSY WILLOW CREEK's own site.)

Get your tickets today and support this triumph of indie filmmaking and comedy that wasn't shat steaming and redolent from the asshole of the Judd Apatow assembly line. This is a film for humor-lovers with a brain, and seriously, it's funny as hell. TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

HEAVY TRAFFIC (1973)

We's all niggers, boy! Ha ha! You an' me, just goddamn crazy niggers! We's all niggers boy. Most of us don't know it yet. 

-Crazy Moe

Back in April of 1972 a new animated film opened and I, as a kid just two months shy of turning seven, begged my mom to take me to see it. She kindly obliged, but when we arrived at the movie theater we were both shocked at being refused admittance because the cartoon flick in question was rated X. The film was of course Ralph Bakshi's FRITZ THE CAT and I was quite confused by not being admitted to a cartoon since in my experience cartoons had always been a thing designed for kids, but I came away from that experience with an understanding that films bearing that strange X rating must contain something it was necessary to protect my innocent young mind from, thereby igniting an interest in X-rated movies that burned fiercely within me until I finally saw one during my adolescence in the late 1970's. The funny thing is the first X-rated movie I ever saw was director Ralph Bakshi's followup to FRITZ THE CAT, 1973's HEAVY TRAFFIC, and while not in any way what I expected from an X flick (namely unmitigated pornography featuring hairy hippie types with dirty feet), I was not in the least bit disappointed and have found that the film sticks with me far more than any other that Bakshi has made.

HEAVY TRAFFIC's cartoonist protagonist, Michael Corleone.

HEAVY TRAFFIC is a surreal and over-the-top blend of live action and animation, but the world it depicts in both instances is a caricatured study of a decaying environment and its equally squalid denizens. It follows the day-to-day existence of several lowlives who act as grotesquely-delineated New York City mainstays from the pre-Giuliani era, those bad old days of a Times Square that oozed a fetid and potentially deadly allure, an urban existential limbo populated by whores, junkies, bums, Mafiosi, and living ethnic stereotypes run rampant. The film is chock-a-block with volatile niggers, spics, guinzos, kikes, gimps and damned near every other unflattering human you can name (although the Chinks are conspicuously missing in action), and at the center of the dysfunctional maelstrom is twenty-two-year-old Michael Corleone (no, not that Michael Corleone), a more or less jobless, virginal slacker who lives in a run-down tenement apartment with his mob-connected Italian father, Angie, and his long-suffering Jewish mother, Ida.

Ida: "I died the day I married a Goy."

While stuck in the middle of his parents' failed and physically violent marriage, Michael spends most of his time at his drawing board, creating what were then known as "underground" comics, and when not being a disappointment in the eyes of his hyper-macho dad and serving as his mom's focus of maturity-stifling Jewish mothering, he wanders the streets of New York, encountering the myriad types previously described. There's not really a plot to speak of, but rather a series of events propelling Michael from Point A to Point B and so on.

During Michael's wanderings we meet such notables as Crazy Moe, a homeless black guy whose bent philosophy may be the closest thing the film has to an existential "voice," pathetic drag hustler Snowflake, the legless and very creepy barfly Shorty (who looks like an even tougher and more mutated version of Popeye transplanted to a depressing post-hippie metropolitan dystopia), and most importantly Carole, a tough, no-nonsense black bartender.

Carole tells it like it is.

Carole is the object of Michael's initially unrequited affections and when she loses her job she moves in with Michael, after which the pair team up for a pathetic series of attempts at earning money that soon escalate to savage brutality.

Angie (Michael's dad and the anti-Homer Simpson) and his drunken mistress, Molly.

But while Michael and Carole try to figure out what to do with their lives, Michael's dad commits a few errors in judgment and conduct that put him out of favor with the local Godfather, a situation that does nothing to soothe his already explosive nature, and his temper is pushed past the limit when he comes home with a fat Italian whore he intends to give to Michael to finally take care of his son's virginity problem, only to find his son shacked up with a mulignane.

A very drunk Angie takes a walk on the wild side with Snowflake (and friends).

Michael's dad then goes on quite a bender, finding solace in the understanding (and frankly predatory) arms of Snowflake — and also possibly several other homosexual hustlers who've set up base in an abandoned cargo truck — and hiring Shorty to kill his son after the Godfather refuses to sanction the hit because Angie's hatred of his nigger-loving progeny is personal and not business-related.

Shorty embarks on a jealousy-fueled hunt.

Y'see, Shorty has carried a seriously unrequited torch for Carole's fine black ass and her hooking up with Michael does not make the legless badass very happy at all, so it's only a matter of time until something very ugly transpires...

Clocking in at a brisk seventy-nine minutes, HEAVY TRAFFIC blew my fourteen-year-old mind when I saw it during a visit to my dad's, late night on WHT (remember that?), since up to that point about the most vivid depiction of New York City that I'd seen was SERPICO (also from 1973). That bygone era was rife with New York City-based films examining the human condition but at such a relatively innocent age I didn't know about that, and my existence in Westport, Connecticut was about as far removed from the horrors of the big city as a one hour ride on a Metro North train would allow, so I certainly was not prepared for the exaggerated truths contained in Bakshi's movie. Several things about it shook me to the core, for better and worse, and to this day I can't get some of HEAVY TRAFFIC's images out of my head. For example (SPOILER WARNING!!!):

• The sequence when Michael is kindly invited to lose his virginity on a rooftop mattress with the very willing assistance of a neighborhood cutie, while a trio of sleazy greasers egg him on.

This bit was especially squirm-inducing to my fourteen-year-old mind because it was certainly a situation to be desired (minus the greasers), but the setting rendered the potentiality quite sordid (who knows what kind of action both that mattress and the girl had previously seen?). But what's more disturbing than the concept of losing one's cherry while being observed by switchblade-wielding local louts is that Michael's over-eager rush toward the girl in question results in her being accidentally shoved off the roof, and after a brief stunned silence Michael turns to the greasers with a sleazy smirk on his face and observes, "She had it comin'," after which he and the greasers laugh at his perceived wit. I was stunned to see such nonchalance in the face of an innocent girl's apparent multiple-story plunge to a splattery end on the pavement, but almost immediately after the boys laugh themselves silly we see the nude and apparently unconscious and unharmed girl dangling by one foot from a clothesline, also to be seen again later in the film from another angle. Was I supposed to read it as the deserved fate of a "loose" girl who'd give herself to any random slob on a rooftop? I didn't know then and and I'm not all that sure about it now, but it still disturbed me when I saw it again recently.

• The exuberant dance, punch-up/slash-up engaged in by the greasers following the girl's plunge off the roof, musically accented by the Isley Brothers' original recording of "Twist & Shout."

The happiness and bloody violence expressed is indeed cartoonish, but it made me think of some weird ancient ritual performed by a bunch of modern savages whose only joy can be found in pain and degradation. This was also the first time I'd heard the original "Twist & Shout" rather than the Beatles cover, and it holds a lot more power for me when coupled with the idea of a group of friends merrily beating and slashing each other. The Coyote coming back unscathed after his latest crash to earth or run-in with dynamite this definitely was not.

• Snowflake was perhaps my earliest exposure to the late-1960's/early-1970's cinematic stereotype of the pathetic and grotesque gay drag hustler, and I really didn't know what to make of her at the time.

An offensive stereotype even then, Snowflake is depicted as trawling seedy bars for very rough trade and actually enjoying getting beaten when her date discovers she's actually a guy. I grew up with some kids who knew they were gay and were out, loud and proud about it from the time they were eight, so Snowflake's sad creepiness did not compute with what I knew of homosexuals. In the years since 1979 I have witnessed the real life version of Snowflake more times than I care to consider, and just as the question crossed my mind when I was a kid, I still ask myself whenever I see one of those lost boys, "What put you where you are, and what will become of you when you end up on the wrong end of the wrong bruiser?" I'd love for some of my current crop of gay friends to see this movie and give me their analysis of Snowflake, once they got over their justifiable offense and nausea.

• Shorty scares the living shit out of me for a number of reasons, especially after encountering several types just like him in the real world during my time at the barbecue joint.

Shorty's a creepy regular at Carole's bar whose lack of legs is never explained, but his half-a-man stature belies the palpable violence brewing a millimeter from his misshapen surface. This dude is the embodiment of every tough guy loser I've ever seen in seedy dives and his animalistic, uncomprehending need for the clearly not interested Carole is painful to watch because once he gets it through his head that he's been rejected, you just know somebody is going to pay for it in blood. Everything that self-admitted diamond in the rough Popeye stood for finds its polar opposite in Shorty, and that's something I'm loath to contemplate.

• The idea of the isolated loser finding solace in the movies of yesteryear is an old trope but it works really well here as Michael sits alone in a vast decaying moviehouse, watching 1940's comedies and musicals that cast the world in far more pleasing shades than the one he exists in (note that I don't say "lives").

The images Michael watches bear no relation to his reality and the heart sinks as the camera pulls away from him, seated in the balcony, to reveal a theater so empty and quiet save for the unspooling movie's soundtrack. I've experienced a similar feeling several times over the past three decades as I sometimes sat alone in assorted theaters, and every time I'm drawn back to the image of Michael's desolation.

• The New York City captured by Bakshi is a surreal and freakish jungle whose every inhabitant and vista appears to have been hewn from some bottomless source of both psychedelia and deep psychosis.

The panicky, bloody red as Carole fearfully avoids being stalked by Shorty.

A distorted view of Snowflake's dockside cargo seraglio.

The pre-Lynchian models at Michael's uncle's girly magazine photo studio.

Looking back at it now, it's something of a miracle that I moved to New York City to find my so-called fame and fortune in the wake of seeing HEAVY TRAFFIC at such an impressionable age, but maybe some of its untamed interpretation of the pre-Giuliani NYC served as a lure to this Connecticut darkie...

• At the film's end we get to see a live action Michael and Carole, and their real life selves are refreshingly even less glamorous than their animated incarnations.

Y'see, the movie opens with live action Michael (Joseph Kaufmann) playing pinball, and as the game intensifies the animation kicks in, blended with well-used stock footage and live street locations. I may be wrong about this, but I think the main animated narrative is a feature-length fantasy experienced by Michael as he works the pinball machine to a futile conclusion (although a conclusion considerably less bleak and disturbing than that met by his animated avatar). Upon making his way out of the arcade and onto the street, Michael's wanderings bring him past the bar where Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson) worked and he sees his dream girl angrily cursing out an unseen patron. The two eventually meet in a park, briefly argue, and then end the film dancing together to the by-now-haunting strains of "Scarborough Fair" as rendered by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66. It's a weird and disorienting finale, but somehow wholly appropriate.

Reminiscent of LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN in its hopelessness, HEAVY TRAFFIC will come as a sobering and rather depressing story for those whose animated tastes are informed by the works of Das Uber Disney and is not recommended if you need a feel-good break from the real world's endless cycle of misery and ennui. Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66's version of "Scarborough Fair" is heard several times throughout the film and serves as an ominous signature that underscores the film's menace and anguish. When I found the soundtrack album in a cutout bin for a buck about eighteen years ago, I took the LP back to my Manhattan apartment, smoked a fat joint and put the record on the turntable, listening to "Scarborough Fair" about six times as the other-than-nicotinal bliss took hold, and in those moments I felt very much connected to Bakshi's squalid vision.

These days the New York City seen on film in movies like MIDNIGHT COWBOY, SHAFT, MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER is long gone, tits-up dead and relegated to history. But as long as films like HEAVY TRAFFIC and its dark fairy tale of Manhattan remain, its time will never truly fade from memory. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Original theatrical release poster.

MOVIE 43 (2013)

I have often said there is no greater cinematic failure than an unfunny comedy. Think about it for a minute. Virtually any other movie genre can at least yield unintentional laughs and therefore some semblance of enjoyment, while a comedy that does not succeed at its very reason for existing — specifically to be funny and make its audience laugh — provides the viewer with absolutely fuck all and just lays there on the screen like three-day-old roadkill. The last movie I saw that made me feel like I'd been watching ninety solid minutes of roadkill was the execrable THE LOVE GURU, and now I can say that MOVIE 43 provided much the same experience, only with the level of tastelessness cranked up to 11 (for a mainstream release, that is).

If you know me at all, either in the real world or from reading my blog's ramblings, it's readily apparent that I have nothing whatsoever against bad taste, profanity, general offensiveness, and the aggressively stupid when it comes to humor. Fuck, I positively revel in such stuff! So how could I not be interested in seeing a movie that purportedly harked back to the now lost comedic niche once filled by such films as THE GROOVE TUBE, TUNNELVISION, THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, and AMAZON WOMEN ON THE MOON? And the other factors that lured me into seeing MOVIE 43 were that it was not screened for critics — never a good sign — though a handful of critics did see it in advance and spurned it like it was a rabid dog, and when the movie opened, the critics were all over it like ugly on a gorilla, almost universally condemning it. (I saw exactly one positive review.) Being an out loud and proud (though cultured) vulgarian, I opted to ignore the critics and see the film for myself, with my friend Lexi and her high school-age brother, Charlie (whom I proudly consider to be my nephew).

We braved the frigid weather and rendezvoused at Park Slope's infamously irritating Pavilion theater, a cheesy multiplex located across from Prospect Park and staffed with an assortment of ghetto-acting louts. Two of the auditoriums did not have heat (which at least was considerately posted at the box office) and the general interior of the place was rather chilly, but the auditorium for MOVIE 43 at least was warm. Charlie arrived before Lexi and walked in to meet me in the lobby, where he walked past the sleazy ticket-taker, who for all we knew could have been just some lout who'd wandered into the theater from the street. My ticket had been torn when I entered but Charlie had not yet purchased his, so I told him to hit the box office. Hearing that exchange, the dodgy ticket-taker asked if Charlie was with me and when I answered in the affirmative, he told Charlie to just walk in and he would meet us in the theater to get the money. Thinking the film was such a mega-bomb that it didn't matter if Charlie paid or not, I figured the guy was just letting him in because why the fuck not and his comment about the money being a feeble attempt at humor, so we thanked him and went into what was hands down the darkest auditorium I have ever been in. True to his word, the ticket guy followed us upstairs and immediately demanded the full $12.00 ticket price from Charlie. As Charlie fished in his pockets for the cash, I looked at the ticket guy and said "Twelve bucks? Dude, I just paid $8.50 for mine!" He quickly shot back with "Oh, shit! Matinee! I forgot it's the matinee! Just gimme eight bucks. I hate change! Just tryin' ta make some money, man." So the guy was obviously short on cash and decided to deny the place of his employ the price of a movie ticket so he could line his own pockets. When Lexi arrived and took her seat, I looked around and noted that including the three of us, there were exactly ten other people in the whole auditorium. I wonder how many of them also got hit up for cash by the ticket-scamming usher?

In other words, the perfect bit of shabbiness to set the mood for the movie that immediately followed.

Anyway, MOVIE 43 is a series of "shock comedy" shorts, loosely connected by a framing narrative in which a desperate and clearly insane screenwriter (Dennis Quaid) attempts to pitch his screenplay to a Hollywood studio producer (Greg Kinnear). The sketches are meant to be seen as segments from the mad writer's script as read by the writer to the stunned producer, none of which really have anything to do with an over-arcing theme (despite the writer's attempts to convince us otherwise), with each providing a central offensive and/or gross concept upon which the bit hinges. More often than not, once the gag is made clear, that's pretty much it, even if the gag elicits an initial giggle or titter, and one finds themselves counting the time until that bit ends and another begins, with the new bit hopefully being better than what preceded it. Unfortunately, around 98% of the material would not pass muster on even the lamest of sketch shows, so what we have here are bits with varying degrees of unfunniness and no solid gems. At times it felt as though the various talent involved — actors (several of whom are A-listers), writers, directors — figured that touching on taboo subjects, profanity, nudity, and violence would automatically add up to comedy gold, but instead those efforts have spun straw. You may laugh once or twice but for the most part the general reaction as the movie's foul scenarios escalate is a skeeved-out "Oh, god!!!" after which the shock wears off and is swiftly rendered tedious and punchline-free.

Of the material trotted out during the flick's ninety-seven-minute running time, I admit to being entertained by the ongoing escalation of the screenwriter's crazed pitching, a situation that results in gunpoint extortion of a paycheck (and fellatio that happens offscreen) and other insanity before the actual writers simply lose interest and cop out by having the actors (who drop character) and film crew (who are now plainly visible) simply say "Fuck this. Let's just run the last short." As for the shorts themselves, none of the full-length offerings were fully satisfying and several went on too long for no good reason, but the ones that stuck with me for various small reasons include:

• Kate Winslett's blind date with Hugh Jackman, the "perfect" man who possess a rather jarring physical flaw. The bit has no proper punchline and is abruptly cut off by returning to the appalled producer telling the insane scriptwriter there's no way the studio would go for it.
• A speed-dating session involving Batman (Jason Sudeikis) dickishly ruining Robin's (Justin Long) chances at romance. I've seen this basic setup done better elsewhere but it gets points here for casting Kristen Bell as Supergirl (sort of).
• A fantastic "romantic" dialogue exchange between a supermarket worker (Kieran Culkin) and his ex-girlfriend (Emma Stone), both of whom clearly still ache for one another. Unfortunately, the bit has no real punchline. Once the crazy dialogue back-and-forth is done, the sketch might as well be also, but it's not.
• The sequence where a seventh-grader (Chloe Moretz) has the misfortune of getting her first period while in the presence of her classmate makeout buddy, his asshole older brother (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and the boys' dad (Patrick Warburton). This could have been a genius bit that cleverly played with male cluelessness when sudden menstruation occurs, but once again the film drops the ball, this time ending the bit with a fake commercial.
• The aforementioned commercial, a fake spot for leak-proof Tampax, is less than a minute in length and is easily the funniest thing in the entire movie.
• Halle Berry's blind date with a tall, dorky-looking Englishman (Stephen Merchant), which devolves into a truly ridiculous game of "truth or dare" escalation. It's funny up to a point but it goes on too long and, once again, results in a fizzled fart of a so-called punchline.
• Terrence Howard as a 1950's-era coach to an all-black basketball team, trying his damnedest to get it through his team's heads that they are black and will destroy their all-white opponents simply because "that's how basketball works." A funny idea that actually does have a punchline, but not much of a good one. The denouement was fairly predictable and it went exactly  where I thought it would.
• A completely gratuitous appearance by FAMILY GUY creator Seth McFarlane, as himself, that serves no purpose whatsoever other than to shoehorn him into the film. He is literally given absolutely nothing to do. There's also a gratuitous shoutout to FAMILY GUY during the Halle Berry sketch that only serves to remind us that there is funnier stuff that we could be watching.

There's a lot of other shit to be had but none of it is funny, and when the credits roll we are "treated" to supposedly-funny outtakes that are not at all amusing, presumably included to pad out the running time. The fact that a film containing so much vulgarity and dumber-than-dirt "guy humor" did not win my favor says a lot, so I simply cannot recommend MOVIE 43, not even when it ends up on cable. It's an almost-total waste of time and I can honestly say I regret not seeing HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS instead, which Lexi wanted to do but I, like an idiot, instead opted for the movie that looked like it would be gone by the end of the week. Now I'm curious to see if it makes it through even a mere seven days. When the inevitable lists of 2013's worst films hits, I guarantee you that MOVIE 43 will be quite deservedly at the head of the pack.

Lastly, the whole experience was quite eloquently summed up by Lexi, who, after we'd all said our goodbyes, texted me with a simple comment: "I want to wash my brain."

Poster from the theatrical release.