Nice SHADOW AND ACT post about Carl Franklin despite his attempts, not getting any feature film directing gigs since 2003.
Carl Franklin is one of my favorite directors (read my coverage of him here), and the fact that he can’t get films to direct is a loss for everybody, especially film fans like myself.
Look to your house Hollywood! Look to your house!
Slightly obtuse statement, but it sounds suitably dire and Shakespearian. 
Well, it’s not quite as provocative as it seems. The premise of this article isn’t that shows such as MADMEN, PAN-AM, and REVENGE are in and of themselves bad or bigoted shows.
They may in and of themselves be good shows. But shows, dramas or scifi or action, that are predominantly White, when not off-set by any shows that are predominantly Black or colored, true to the definition of predominant… create an environment, a medium, that is about the ascendancy, importance, influence, authority of force of one group.
In such an environment it is impossible for me to buy into, relate, follow, view, or otherwise enjoy such shows. Now in an environment where a show such as PAN-AM is counter-pointed with a show on The forming of AIR JAMAICA or the Black Stuntmen’s Union or the Black Coyboys’ Union or any adventure or thrilling show with a predominant cast of color; then PAN-AM rather than being indicative of a color and ethnic bias in every show in tv, can be seen as one voice in a chorus, rather than the same voice, everywhere.
So that’s the problem I have with shows such as MADMEN and REVENGE they paint everything with the same trite and pale brush (take the series REVENGE, based on a book by the son of one of the most famous Black men, and the cast is all white. Explain that to me? Along with that it always rings false that we have yet to see a THREE MUSKETEERS that represents the ethnicity of the author Alexandre Dumas, or the ethnicity of the inspiration for all Dumas’ heroes, namely his father, France’s most famous and most feared soldier, the elder Alexandre Dumas, (inexplicably called Thomas-Alexandre in recent writings), the Black giant, the warrior Moor, Napolean’s most feared and brilliant General. The COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO is directly inspired by how his father was betrayed by Napolean, imprisoned, and killed. And rather than anyone ever tell that story, it becomes in REVENGE about a blond woman, mad about something. Forgive me if I have no interest in that retelling.)
So, What’s the solution?
We’ll get to it. First indulge me, with a brief trip to yesteryear.
In the late 50s, into the 60s and 70s television and cinema in the US, and indeed throughout the Western World, made great strides in becoming more representative of the class struggle going on throughout the world.
That’s a fact, it just is. So let’s begin there.
As countries from Congo to Cuba to Korea to the West Indies to Brazil all were dealing, at various stages, with the shattering of traditional Colonial ties. With populations of repressed people, embracing the concept, both with artistry and arms, of “not eating at another man’s table” but creating their own table.
It was a staggering period not just of revolution, but potentially evolution… for the world and the west.
Rather than mass media that explored and showcased only the fantasies and the fears of the white and the male you began getting shows that took place in a world reflective of the movements changing the landscape of our cultures and our time. Civil disobedience, and sit-ins, and Black power, and Native American rights, transcendentalism and free love, sexual and religious experimentation, and of course war and the search for peace and self identification.
And all these growing pains, all of this stew of change, could be seen in the entertainment of the age.
DANGER MAN, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, PROFESSIONALS, GOOD TIMES, SANFORD AND SON, the rise of Soul Cinema, and the rise of Hong Kong Cinema, and Neo-Realism in Italy, and the New Wave in France, and the didactic films out of Russia, and Brazil, and Cuba, and Senegal, all of this making its way to newly born film studies programs in the states that gave birth to a whole generation of entertainment makers excited and influenced and inspired by this time of change and challenge.
So suddenly you had Patrick McGoohan in the DANGER MAN TV show 50 years ago globe-trotting and going to different countries and different people, and exploring issues of colonialism, and civil war, and terrorism, and governmental oppression, and doing this with a changing ethnically diverse cast. Dealing with issues of Middle East tensions and modern slavery. And this kind of informed and humanistic film-making came from the creators down. And all the shows of that period, while not DANGER MAN ground breaking, to greater or lesser degrees were that informed and representative of a culturally diverse and changing world.
Move the clock forward 50 years, and suddenly you have no community owned or locally owned cinema, much less production companies. That’s not an accident, that’s a very pointed, and very considered monopolization and marginalization.
You have the end of virtually any locally or regionally owned newspaper, radio, or television station. So you get the end of people and community created movements, and art and music, and you get instead corporate construction of reality and ‘art’ in things like AMERICAN IDOL and its ilk.
You have cinema and television that is in retreat from ideas… like diversity and the rights of man, and instead seeks a return to the exclusionary, blinders on, cinema of the 50s. Not just in terms of content and cast in front of the camera, but talent and crew behind the camera.
As, in reality, the mad military war machine of billionaires undoes the local determinism of countries like Haiti and Liberia and Libya, so too is our entertainment,no less the tool of billionaires, undoing the strides made toward multiculturalism. A return to “Whites only” television from MADMEN to PAN-AM to REVENGE.
And those shows while they hold no interest for me, would be fine if they were counterpointed by an equal number of US made shows with a majority of Black or Brown or Asian or a combination thereof, of actors in front the camera, and talent behind the camera.
And the talent is there, as screenwriters such as John Ridley discuss in numerous interviews. Even more talent than was available in the 60s and 70s is available now, the difference is, the cinemas are bought up, the advertising is cost prohibitive, and quite frankly the doors are closed.
In the 60s and 70s, Hollywood saw the need for an influx of diversity to save them from the rise of Independent Cinema (an outgrowth of viable and healthy local cinemas, local determinism), and there were a good number of people in the studios who were happy and excited for that diversity. They were part of the changing times, and part of changing it.
Today Independent Cinema has no way into the theaters, because the locally owned theater circuit, and indeed the community controlled mass-media circuit that served America, particularly Black America from the 20s to the 70s, has been bought out, legalized away, and generally dismantled.
For what was gained, more was lost in the compromise of integration.
The problem with the doctrine of separate and equal, was the fact that is was NEVER separate and equal, it was always separate and UNEQUAL. The Black Power movement and Black Panther movement was about making it SEPARATE AND EQUAL. Was to make the lie into the truth. And that is the reason we have integration today. Because the idea of separate and equal, scared the powers to be to their very soul.
They saw in the more moderate integration model of Martin Luther and his ilk, a compromise that could become a massive victory. They retreated from Separate and (Un)equal and embraced Integration of a sort, “you can now use our Bathrooms, you can now to an extent come into our house, but… you have to lose your house. You have to lose your radio stations, your movie theaters, your stores, your farms, your wallstreets, your sports teams, your attempt at self determination”.
Of course it wasn’t presented like that, but a few decades later that’s absolutely what has happened. The thriving economic base of Black America that thrived even under the odiousness of Separate but unequal, wherein they could still provide for themselves and be self sufficient, has been completely gutted under the together but even more UNEQUAL system of integration. And that robbing of local determinism has extended to all America. Has shown itself to be the most significant volley in a class-war that has America trillions of dollars in debt, and slaved, to corporations gross and immoral.
And television and cinema is the clearest example of this wholesale pillaging of a peoples economic potential.
So that’s what I see when I see shows like MADMAN or PANAM or REVENGE or SMALLVILLE (past season 4) I see prejudice and bigotry and class warfare… codified.
So you have a television and a cinema environment that has turned back the clock, and is again solely about showcasing the fantasies and the fears of the white and the rich, to the exclusion of all else.
It bores me to go backwards. To learn from the past is a great thing, to repeat the past is not. And we have a whole generation of studio execs and heads, who think they are doing something new by embracing the old, and all they are doing… is wasting time.
In a multi-cultural society, an increasingly multi-cultural society, these dreams of exclusion cannot stand, they will become unsatisfying, they always do. And in the end we will have to waste years just getting back to the same point of diversity as the 1970s. Getting back to the starting point from which we should be… evolving.
So let’s cut out some of the time wasting. Contact these studios signing off on this exclusionary television, the creators and producers, twitter them, facebook em, call’em, even write em, let them know the show doesn’t represent you, and to create a show that does. And let the advertisers know, say “this show boycotts me and mine. Since you are asking me to support your product, I want you to produce a show that supports me.”
It’s economics people. For all their crushing of competition, ultimately the decision makers and gate-keepers still need to create a product you want to buy. Let them know they are failing at that mandate.
Let them know you want to see more shows, that are both smart and diverse.
Day Break – The Complete Series- Do not buy the 2disk version, get the 4 disk version
Kidnapped – The Complete Series
Secret Agent AKA Danger Man: The Complete Collection (Slimline Packaging)
The Philanthropist: The Complete Series
I Am Cuba: The Ultimate Edition
Let them know you want to see more DAY BREAK with Taye Diggs and Moon Bloodgood, more 55 DEGREES NORTH with Don Gilet, more KINGS with Eamonn Walker more BLOOD AND BONE with Michael Jai White, more James Purefoy and Jesse L. Martin in THE PHILANTHROPIST (the spiritual descendant of McGoohan’s DANGER MAN); more shows that look forward to solutions, rather than backward to evasions.
Challenge the creators, challenge the studios, challenge the advertisers, challenge the performers, and challenge yourself to go not marching backward, but to go forward… into the mystery. And ultimately we will as cities and a nation, have to eschew outside control, and embrace again local production of items and local determinism.
And it starts as simply as recognizing and calling out the prejudiced the exclusionary and the destructive when we see it.
Here endeth the lesson.
Well today I got the chance to see Tim Burton’s 23rd feature film, DARK SHADOWS. Starring Tim Burton’s actor of choice Johnny Depp, the film is a humor tinged send-up of the long running Gothic soap opera of the same name, DARK SHADOWS.
Rather than go for the Gothic horror element of the original, Tim Burton instead crafts a horror tinged comedy set in the 70s. There’s more of TEEN WOLF in this film than of THE WOMAN IN BLACK.
Add a soundtrack laced with the popular songs of the 70s, that seemingly has nothing to do with the film in question, some broad humor that misses rather than hits, and some groan inducing product placement (MCDONALDS, WHEETIES, MS. BUTTERWORTH all three product placements wasted on me, since I don’t like or purchase/patronize any of those) and you have a film that doesn’t exactly scream… hit.
That said, it’s innocuous enough, and works its way eventually to a satisfactory if unremarkable ending.
It’s not a movie you’re going to consider much if at all when you leave the theater, and in that way it’s like more than a few Burton films. I think both Burton and Depp together have gotten into this habit of making films of a type, with Depp playing these increasingly buffoonish and foppish characters, set in fairytale worlds that are variations on a, possibly, overused theme.
But these are the films Tim Burton likes to tell, so you get what you get. However for my tastes when Tim Burton tries to play it straighter and more serious, as in films such as BATMAN and SLEEPY HOLLOW, is when his films are at the most effective.
Also Johnny Depp is too fine an actor to continually play nothing more than the outlandish fool in successive Burton roles, I would love to see him play a role straight, or explore a character without winking at the audience. Watching Depp in these Burton roles is often like watching a sharp blade continually and purposely… being dulled.
I think DARK SHADOWS would have benefited from more Gothic and less comedy. But we have what we have. And even in a weaker effort, Tim Burton’s set design and visuals are always cinematic feasts.
So DARK SHADOWS isn’t necessarily a bad movie, it’s just not one I would suggest paying to see in the theater, or even being in a hurry to catch on rental, unless you’re a Burton fan, then by all means. But for the rest of you, DARK SHADOWS is a film you can afford to leave… in the shadows.
Grade: C-.
Just finished a post on the most intriguing DVD/Bluray releases for the First Quarter of 2012 for Mainstream US releases. Now here is the more exciting list, including DVD/Bluray reissues, foreign, and Obscure!
Lot’s of really intriguing entries to hunt down. Among them several Jean Rollin films released on Bluray, several never previously released Jim Brown Films are available on DVD, Alfred Hitchcock films on Blu-ray and much more.
Take a look!
Notorious [Blu-ray]
Rebecca [Blu-ray]
Spellbound [Blu-ray]
North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition in Blu-ray Book Packaging)
The Iron Rose [Blu-ray]
The Nude Vampire [Blu-ray]
Fascination [Blu-ray]
Lips of Blood [Blu-ray]
Tick…Tick…Tick…
The Split
100 Rifles
El Condor
Dark Of The Sun (Remastered)
Take a Hard Ride
Slaughter/Slaughter’s Big Ripoff
The Slams
Kenner
Aurora
Swastika
The Man From London
Sinners And Saints
Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection (Caliber 9 / The Italian Connection / The Boss / Rulers of the City) [Blu-ray]
My Joy
More specifics on certain titles later.
John Ridley is one of the most versatile of writers, starting out doing writing for such shows as MARTIN and FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR he would follow that up with some of the most accomplished novels, screenplays, and films of the waning days of the 20th and new days of the 21st century.
For me his loose HARD LUCK pulp trilogy of STRAY DOGS, LOVE IS A RACKET and EVERYBODY SMOKES IN HELL are the books that made me a John Ridley fan. They are a series of exhilarating mystery novels, that share only a thematic sensibility but a successful one, of a hard luck or down on their luck protagonist, trying to navigate a world completely out of his control.
These would spawn two equally excellent films, Namely U-TURN based on STRAY DOGS and directed by Oliver Stone and starring Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez, and COLD AROUND THE HEART written and directed by Ridley and starring David Caruso, Kelly Lynch and Stacey Dash, both excellent, intimate, dark noirs/neo-noirs in the vein of films such as BLOOD SIMPLE and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.
Unfortunately both films were released in 1997, the year of Blockbusters such as TITANIC, GOOD WILL HUNTING, FIFTH ELEMENT, MEN IN BLACK, as well as the year of the crime film/neo noir JACKIE BROWN, LA CONFIDENTIAL, LOST HIGHWAY, THE GAME. It was just a case of bad timing, and these great movies getting squeezed out at the box office.
Unfortunately I think what the financial under-performance of the films, specifically COLD AROUND THE HEART robbed us of most, was more work from John Ridley as director. I think in any less big-budget heavy year, his COLD AROUND THE HEART would have done for him what ONE FALSE MOVE did for the career of Carl Franklin, or the aforementioned BLOOD SIMPLE did for the Coen Brothers.
As it is both films are available on DVD (unfortunately Director’s Commentary versions aren’t yet out there) and can be appreciated for the stylish and compelling films they are.
And they led into the next phase of John Ridley’s career.
Cold Around the Heart: Price your copy here
-End of Part I-
On the DVD front I recently watched the INTERNATIONAL, THE UNINVITED, RED, and the original Swedish language THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.
UNINVITED- This 2009 film, was the worst of the four. About a teen whose mom burnt to death in a fire, and her coming to terms with that, after being released from a mental ward. The first feature film by the Guard Brothers while it did have a nice twist at the end, by the time that came I was too annoyed with the characters, and the film to really care. Grade: D.
“Along with me I’m gonna need a scientist, an engineer, and of course, a black person to sacrifice himself in case something goes wrong.”
- Eric Cartman, SOUTH PARK, season 9, Cartman’s Hippie Exit Strategy 2006
RED- RED would have been okay except for one thing, the idiotic lets sacrifice/kill the ethnic character (Morgan Freeman) for no reason whatsoever. It’s the most egregious example I’ve seen in a film.
It was such a moronic death, that I just couldn’t believe the stupidity, I went through the film expecting, to find out it was some trick, the character was wearing a bullet proof vest and distracting them, and playing possum, and would turn up later in the movie.
But Nope. Basically Morgan Freeman’s character just decides to commit suicide for the white characters, when it was completely unnecessary.
I mean completely unnecessary.
We’re not talking the cool Jim Brown in THE DIRTY DOZEN type death, this is utterly unnecessary. When it was probably fifteen ways they could have all gotten out alive. Nope, instead the script just shoehorns in a ‘let’s kill the ethnic character’ scene. This Director, Robert Schwentke and Writers Joe and Erich Hoeber go on my list of incompetent and pedestrian filmmakers to avoid.
They should really be ashamed of themselves, and the fact that the writers wrote the upcoming BATTLESHIP, hints heavily at that being a film worth avoiding. All in all, the unnecessary cliche/stereotype ruined an otherwise okay action flick. GRADE: D-.
THE INTERNATIONAL- nicely filmed thriller, about an Interpol agent trying to bring down an arms running bank. Well filmed and enjoyable. B+.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO- It was better than I thought it was going to be, this tale of an investigation into a 40year old disappearance/murder. Well filmed, well acted, and both disturbing and thrilling. Not something I would feel any need to watch again, but a compelling viewing experience at the time. B.
“Take him Lord. But I suggest, knowing Cable, you do not take him lightly.”
– THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE
THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE- Who knew Sam Pekinpah in addition to being a fantastic action and western director, could also pull off such a deft and delicate drama, while at the same time being an outrageous, and at times bitingly funny sex farce. But at its heart it’s true to its title… an endearing ballad. A well done, and surprising film from a director best known for his slow-mo blood arias. However CABLE HOGUE is not that tpe of movie, but is no less memorable. . Strongly recommended.
I have to tell you, I seek out films typically, not for stars, or characters, or writers, but for directors.
For stylistic or qualitative certainties, energies, familiarities,… visions, that certain directors bring to film.
Since the films of Hitchcock and Ford and Lang, I’ve been excited by the vision of singular directors. The work of many distilled through one.
This new section will cover directors that are currently on my radar. Now without further ado…
I seek out the films of Jaume Balagueró.
His films, there atmosphere… compels. With 5 feature films in the horror genre, and one TV movie, I see him as a great stylist, and filmmaker in the vein of Ibanez Serrador.
Balaguro’s films are eerie, sumptuous, disquieting pagents of unease. Of those places where we become… insecure. However watching his filmography including THE NAMELESS, TO LET, etc.., his work is plagued with a tendency to trope writing.
That is, his films are filled with characters performing unbelievably stupid actions, and putting themselves in harm’s way, always finding an excuse to search by themselves at the most inopportune times, in places that they know to be dangerous, whether Emma Vilarasau in NAMELESS or Anna Paquin in DARKNESS. And Balaguero’s reliance on these overused tropes of the medium, these idiocies of character, strains the credibility of his films, the suspension of disbelief, past the point necessary to keep you invested in his stories.
So instead of staying embroiled in his story, the idiotic scripting of his characters, the incredibly moronic actions, plotting, rips me out of the story, and I immediately stop caring.
Characters, open-eyed, making the stupidest decisions possible completely annoys me, and makes me want to see the last of the characters and the film as quickly as possible.
This poor writing, this trope writing, most egregiously seen in films like TO LET and THE NAMELESS undermines an otherwise very talented director, and otherwise very passionate cast, and cause films that should succeed… to fail.
The only exceptions I have seen to this, have been the REC films, where Jaume Balagueró is teamed with a less formulaic, cliche ridden director, in co-director Paco Plaza. Paco Plaza is a slightly less experienced director than Balaguero, but crafts films that are far smarter, and less dependent on irrational, idiotic character decisions to move the story along.
In REC you can see the strength of that collaboration, keeping Balaguero’s masterful visual eye, while also offering smart, full fledged characters, that are capable of acting like real people would, rather than movie cliches/pawns.
All in all the solo films of Balaguero, while always worth a look, are ultimately frustrating, and slightly disappointing viewing experiences. I’m hoping Paco Plaza rubs off on Balaguero, and he gets increasingly better at crafting smart, rather than contrived and stale, films.
So a rental recommendation for the following Balaguero film’s: THE NAMELESS, DARKNESS, FRAGILE (the visuals and athmosphere alone make them worth a look, regardless of how badly they falter, at the very least Balaguero understands how to… disquiet),
A fail/do not waste your money recommendation on his short film TO LET (which is everything that is wrong with his filmmaking, is the poster child for stupid, cliched movie actions)
And finally a buy recommendation for the two REC films he did with Paco Plaza (which are fantastic).
So Juame Balaguero is a filmmaker to watch, but a filmmaker who is not quite there yet.
Was a director who helmed only 10 features in his career, not enough to forge any real stylistic identity in the minds of filmgoers. However some notable films in his filmography were EDWARD THE II and THE SEARCH FOR THE NILE (both tv productions done 1970, and 1971 respectively, seemingly very well received, but he would not work again as a director for 6 years, and both films are not available on DVD), he would follow those up with intriguing films such as LEGACY, EYE OF THE NEEDLE, RETURN OF THE JEDI, JAGGED EDGE. The latter three I’ve seen, EYE OF THE NEEDLE a war/espionage thriller with a standout performance by Donald Sutherland being a personal favorite, and comes higly recommended. But both RETURN OF THE JEDI and JAGGED EDGE are very accomplished films, and LEGACY has a good reputation as a thriller/horror film. So all in all, the filmography of a talented director who left us too soon.
