It’s a Gift (1934) (Norman Z. McLeod)
W.C. Fields is my grandfather. To see W.C. Fields in a movie is to see my grandfather, God rest his senile soul. It’s him, from his mannerisms right down to the intonation of his voice. So, Fields’ eerie resemblance to my grandfather means that the way I view a W.C. Fields film is fairly singular, I suppose, but there’s lots for everyone to enjoy in the Fields oeuvre. With his films, you laugh occasionally, but more often you watch with a sense of bemused fascination at this strange character Fields has created. The Fields catalogue is, to put it kindly, pretty hit-and-miss. There is no definitive masterpiece in there; even classics like The Bank Dick (a very enjoyable movie, by the way) make the films of the Marx Brothers look like works of austerity and narrative discipline. My favourite W.C. Fields movie is It’s a Gift, a 73-minute movie that is basically about three or four comic set pieces strung together by the flimsiest of plots, but this movie is very funny. The height of comic invention comes during the long section where Fields simply tries to get some sleep, a scene that takes up, I kid you not, about a quarter of the film’s running time. And the inspiration doesn’t stop.

Chungking Express (1994) (Wong Kar-wai)
If you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity, you may have noticed that I have a lot of admiration for Wong Kar-wai, considering that I name-drop either him or his films in virtually every other review that I write. Chungking Express isn’t his very best work – I believe that 2046 is one of the greatest achievements in cinema, and Happy Together isn’t far behind – but if you haven’t seen any of his films, this accessible, exhilaratingly fresh film is the place to start. It’s split into two halves: in the first, a lonely cop (Takeshi Kaneshiro) attempts to create a bond with a mysterious, beautiful woman (Brigitte Lin), who stays with him for the night because she’s a drug-runner who has been double crossed. In the second, a pixieish food-stand operator (Faye Wong) falls in love with yet another lonely cop (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), and begins secretly sneaking into his apartment and re-decorating. Filmed by the great cinematographer Christopher Doyle as an intoxicating, neon-drenched evocation of city life, this simply delightful film (and ‘delightful’ is not a word I throw around casually) is at once one of the saddest and most uplifting films I’ve ever seen…and will forever change the way you listen to “California Dreamin’.”
[NOTE: The North American DVD release features an introduction and wrap-up by Quentin Tarantino. If you can stand the sight of, he offers some good insights on the film’s background and appeal…not least his correct observation that everyone who sees this film will develop a crush on Faye Wong].

Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes (1998) (Wesley Emerson)
Even if you’ve never seen a porno movie, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of John Holmes. The star of hundreds of XXX movies and supposedly the bedmate of 14,000 women (probably closer to 1,000), his fame rests largely on two things: having inspired the Dirk Diggler character in Boogie Nights, and, more importantly, being the proud owner of 13 ½ inches of raw talent. Obviously there have been a lot of documentaries about Holmes over the years, most of them little more than glorified porn films, but this film is the real thing. It covers his life as a middle-class man who entered the porn business on a lark, and sees his life and relationships crumble under his drug addiction and self-made mystique. His film work, particularly a popular series in which he played a randy detective named ‘Johnny Wadd,’ is analyzed (Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the interviewees, makes a rather tortured defense of Holmes’ acting), as is his drug abuse, marriages, and alleged involvement in the bloody Wonderland murders, but what really resonates is the portrait it paints of Holmes himself. We see archival interview footage of Holmes lying his face off about his past – Holmes was so prone to fabricating whoppers about himself that, according to some of the interviewees, he would forget what was real and what was bullshit. Near the documentary’s conclusion, we learn that he contracted HIV, but continued to appear in foreign-produced sex films without informing his co-stars of his condition. Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes is haunting in the way it presents a man who became so buried under his own image, vices, and stupidity that at the end of his life, there may not have been a human being inside any more.
[NOTE: This film is available on its own or as an extra feature accompanying the sometimes interesting but totally incoherent 2003 film Wonderland, with Val Kilmer as John Holmes. Also, beware of a severely edited R-rated version – its credited director is a certain Alan Smithee.]

Biggie and Tupac (2003) (Nick Broomfield)
If you read this blog regularly, you may have also noticed a lot of references to Nick Broomfield, a British documentary filmmaker whose films I simply cannot get enough of. He works in a first-person style that makes Michael Moore look positively slick by comparison (Broomfield, the on-air host, carries his own boom mike). Here, Broomfield investigates the murders of iconic rap artists Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, two ex-friends who were gunned down in drive-by shootings only months apart. Despite the surplus of witnesses, no charges were ever filed, and only the most superficial of investigations took place. Biggie and Tupac is essentially a detective story, with Broomfield poking his nose into the sections of LA where a white, middle-aged British documentarian would look most out-of-place and gradually pieces together an alarming charge: that Suge Knight, the much-feared CEO of Death Row records, ordered the death of Tupac when it became clear that Tupac would be leaving Death Row and auditing it for up to $10 million, and then ordered Biggie killed to make it look like the result of gang warfare. The alleged assassins? Two off-duty officers who the LAPD were reluctant to question, in fear of a PR nightmare of epic proportions.
An alarming charge, to be sure. Whether or not you buy Broomfield’s conclusions isn’t as important as the way he comes to them – by the end of the film, there is little doubt that the LAPD’s investigation was shamefully lackluster, and that Suge Knight is one scary dude. And I have spent so much time trying to describe this conspiracy theory that I haven’t even mentioned the best part of the movie: it’s when Broomfield shows up at Suge Knight’s prison unannounced and bluffs his way into an interview.

Secret Honor (1984) (Robert Altman)
One of Robert Altman’s best and least-seen films is this memorable one-man show, starring Philip Baker Hall as Richard Nixon in his last days in the White House. The film plays like a secret confessional, as we see a worn and defeated Nixon in his private study speaking all his rambling thoughts into his beloved tape recorder. Nixon babbles on semi-coherently about the presidency, Kissinger, his mother, the Kennedy family (not too many kind words about them), and, of course, himself.
As a character study, and a legitimate attempt by a left-wing filmmaker to understand Nixon’s psyche, this film is a triumph, and it’s especially a triumph for the great character actor Hall, who is even better than Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s higher-profile Nixon film. You may not like the Nixon presented in this film, but you’ll understand him. And it’s a testament to Altman that there is not a dull minute in a film that is basically a long, stream-of-consciousness rant.

Godzilla 2000 (1999) (Takao Okawara)
Obviously this one isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but if you like giant rubber monsters as much as I do, it’s a great time. It’s not the best Godzilla movie (that would be the original 1954 Gojira, still one of the greatest monster films of all time), nor is it the cheesiest (take your pick: Godzilla vs. Megalon or Godzilla 1985), but it’s definitely one of the most purely entertaining. The plot: an alien spaceship that looks a little like silver bicycle seat wants to take over the world. Godzilla don’t like no aliens on his turf, so it’s time for some big green whup-ass. “Why does Godzilla keep protecting us?” asks an awestruck woman. “Maybe it is because Godzilla is inside each one of us,” replies her companion.
There’s obviously a lot of cheese here, but I think this is, objectively speaking, a pretty good movie. The special effects are among the best in the Godzilla series, the script is fast-paced, and the monster action scenes are abundant and nicely done. It’s a good monster rally that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Lost in La Mancha (2003) (Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe)
Terry Gilliam, the Monty Python animator whose films include Twelve Monkeys, Brazil, and The Fisher King, set out in 2000 to make a film version of Don Quixote, starring Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort. Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, who previously documented Gilliam’s creative process with the compelling The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys, agreed to film a making-of documentary to be used on the eventual DVD release of the Quixote film.
Seven days after the start of filming, it became clear that the making-of documentary would be the only film that would survive. Gilliam’s Quixote collapsed after only a week. Storms ruined landscapes and damaged equipment; jet planes constantly disrupted shots; the horses wouldn’t cooperate; rehearsal time was minimal; the $32 million budget was, as Gilliam put it, “half the money we need”; and Jean Rochefort, Gilliam’s Quixote, discovered a prostate problem, forcing him to bow out of the film.
Lost in La Mancha is the best film I have ever seen about film, capturing both the ecstasy and (especially) the agony of the filmmaking process. It is immensely sad, but often uproariously funny, and as candid and revealing a look into filmmaking as has ever been made. And at the centre is Gilliam himself, a fascinating (and, of course, Quixotic) character whose ambitions and disappointments form the film’s emotional core.

COMING SOON: A review of Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited”

Police Story (1985) (Jackie Chan)
The Hollywood career of Jackie Chan has been pretty depressing for anyone who has seen how talented the man really is. If you’re the type of person who answers “Rush Hour” when you’re asked to name your favourite Jackie Chan film, see Police Story to see how funny and reckless he was at the height of his powers. The plot – Jackie must protect a valuable witness from bad guys – is pretty standard stuff, but the action scenes are arguably the best that Jackie has ever filmed. SEE! Jackie clinging onto a moving bus with only an umbrella! SEE! Jackie pull Maggie Cheung off a moving motorcycle! SEE! A bus come to a halting stop, with three stuntmen crashing out of the upper-deck windows and falling head-first onto the pavement!
Police Story ends with the stunt that many consider his best. Chan, looking down a shopping mall atrium as the bad guy is running away several floors down, jumps onto a pole in the atrium and slides down…crashing through a glass-and-wood partition and dozens of light bulbs on the way down. The stunt is especially amazing considering that 1) Chan didn’t think to wear gloves to protect his hands from burns, and 2) Someone plugged the light bulbs into real electrical sockets.
According to his autobiography, Chan badly hurt his back during this stunt, nearly
breaking the seventh and eighth vertebrae (had they been broken, he would have been paralysed). He also suffered second-degree burns on his hands and had shards of double-strength candyglass stuck in his legs and torso.
And all that for his audience. What an entertainer!

Fetishes (1996) (Nick Broomfield)
Nick Broomfield (whose Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer was written about in a previous column entry) spent several weeks at Pandora’s Box, a high-priced S&M parlor in New York’s Fifth Avenue where wealthy businessmen would routinely come to be whipped, verbally abused, and generally humiliated for their sexual and psychological satisfaction (although no sex allegedly took place in the parlor). Broomfield shoots many of the encounters, and the results are sometimes disturbing – a black man fantasizing about being a slave, a Jewish man pretending to be a victim in an SS camp, and other equally aberrant situations. Fetishes, which is more of a fly-on-the-wall documentary than most of Broomfield’s other work, is valuable, not to mention scary, in its unflinching depiction of a deviant sexual underworld.
(NOTE: A DVD of Fetishes was released in the early years of the format, but is currently unavailable. I saw it by renting a VHS copy from Suspect Video).

Election (2005) (Johnnie To)
The Hong Kong film industry, once one of the most productive and innovative in the entire world, has fallen on hard times recently because of the rise of bootlegging in Asia and the general lack of interesting new talent. Just about everyone agrees that the Hong Kong film industry cannot be completely dismissed, however, because of one man: Johnnie To, the prolific director whose recent films have included critical and financial successes like Breaking News, Exiled, Fulltime Killer, and Throwdown.
His ambitious film Election is a convincing and engrossing depiction of the events surrounding the election of a head of a Chinese triad organization. It’s Simon Yam vs. Tony Leung Ka-fai, and their campaign strategies may be even less ethical than the ones used in legitimate politics. The story is complex but always fascinating, and Johnnie To and company really seem to understand the goings-on of the Triad subculture. This film won four Hong Kong Oscars, including Best Picture, and spawned the sequel Election II, recently released in North America as Triad Election.

Hollywoodland (2006) (Allen Coulter)
I think it’s time for our society to give Ben Affleck another chance. Yes, he squandered a lot of goodwill by appearing in every bad action movie ever made between 1998 and 2003, as well as a certain vanity project with Jennifer Lopez that need not be named. Still, the last four years have humbled the man, and he’s slowly beginning to prove that he can actually act.
In Hollywoodland, he stars as George Reeves, who children of the 1950s will remember as TV’s lumpy, out-of-shape Superman. The film follows a low-rent private investigator (Adrien Brody) as he investigates Reeves’ suicide, and begins to suspect that there may be more to the story than has been reported. Granted, JFK-type conspiracy theories might be a little pretentious for a film about the guy who played Superman, but Hollywoodland is worthwhile for its scenes recounting the life of Reeves himself, in which Affleck is very convincing.
Hollywoodland was released in September of last year and there was some quiet talk of Affleck being considered for an Oscar nomination. Though he won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, an Oscar nod was not forthcoming after the film fizzled at the box office. But see Hollywoodland, and see why Ben Affleck may not be the antichrist we thought he was back in 2003.

“I can’t stand this scenery another minute! All natural forests should be turned into housing developments! I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don’t we taxpayers have a voice anymore?”
-Mike Stole in Desperate Living

Seven Chances (1925) (Buster Keaton)
While most of Keaton’s fans would probably prefer The General or, say, Steamboat Bill Jr., Seven Chances is my favourite of the Great Stone Face’s oeuvre. In the film, Keaton, whose company is on the brink of bankruptcy, learns that his uncle has left him a fortune of $7 million…but only if he gets married by the end of the day. Keaton, of course, tries his luck with literally every girl in sight, eventually culminating with the single best silent-film crowd scene that Cecil B. DeMille never shot.
Seven Chances isn’t the most technically innovative of Keaton’s films, nor is it the most ambitious, but I think it’s the fastest-paced and funniest, and at a slim 56-minutes, there isn’t a single wasted scene. If you’ve never seen a silent comedy, this is a good introduction.

Desperate Living (1977) (John Waters)
John Waters made a name for himself with the revolting low-budget oddity Pink Flamingos (1973), famous for, among other things, the scene where 300-pound transvestite Divine actually eats dog doo. Desperate Living, the last film from his shock/underground period, is technically crude and sure to offend even the most jaded of viewers…but I have to admit: I laughed a lot.
Mink Stole stars as an insane woman who, with her 400-pound maid (Jean Hill), kills her husband and flees to Mortville, a revolting land where convicts can choose to live instead of jail. There they meet tough-talking transsexual Mole McHenry (Susan Lowe) and her ridiculously glamorous girlfriend Muffy St. Jacques (Liz Renay), and become involved in political intrigue (if those are the words I’m looking for) around the sinister Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey). In between are a botched sex change operation, a plot to infect Mortville with rabies, and some of the most ridiculous love scenes you’ll ever see in a movie.
Mink Stole? Liz Renay? Edith Massey? The star power truly knows no bounds! All of Waters’ cast members deliver their lines in ridiculously melodramatic fashion, emphasizing Waters’ campy approach to the material and giving the film a strange innocence. Being an early Waters film, the director lays on the shock value, and watching the film feels like a genuinely edgy, dangerous experience. The sheer over-the-top nature of the entire film gives it a lot of its appeal.
John Waters’ brand of humour may not be your cup of tea. In fact, most of the time, it isn’t even mine (Pink Flamingos, for all its infamy, is very dull, and A Dirty Shame gets my vote for worst movie of the decade so far). But if you have a fondness for high camp, low trash, bad taste, or any combination of those three, I think you’ll get a kick out of Desperate Living.

Gymkata (1985) (Robert Clouse)
Yes, Gymkata. Hear me out.
Normally, I would not devote space in this particular column to a bad movie, but Gymkata is no ordinary bad movie. There are your run-of-the-mill bad movies (Rush Hour 3, to pull a name out of a hat), then there are your legendary run-of-the-mill bad movies (Gigli), and there are your cheesy, amusing run-of-the-mill bad movies (most of the stuff Roger Corman shot in a week during the 1950s). In a much more elite group are bad movies that aren’t just “so bad they’re good,” to quote a tired old phrase, but one step beyond “so bad they’re good” – movies that with their sheer ridiculousness can only be described as alternative masterpieces. Plan 9 from Outer Space is one of those movies, as are Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Godzilla 1985 (American version), Rocky IV, Dhoom 2… and Gymkata.
From the director of Enter the Dragon, Gymkata stars former Olympic-level gymnast Kurt Thomas, possibly the least charismatic action star in a decade that gave us Christopher Lambert. The US government recruits Thomas to take part in a deadly obstacle course in a small country. If Thomas wins the game, he will be granted one wish by the country’s government: to be able to use the country as part of that kooky Reagan-era ‘Star Wars’ defense program. Ah, the ‘80s.
To survive the obstacle course, Thomas has to use his deadly Gymkata skill. What is Gymkata? Well, according to the trailer, “When gymnastics and karate are fused, the combustion becomes an explosion, and a new kind of martial art is born.” SEE: Kurt Thomas find a pommel horse in the middle of a town square during a fight scene! SEE: Robert Clouse cut corners by having Thomas jump over a gorge on his horse, but not show the gorge. SEE: a fortress guarded by a lot of white guys in 10-cent ninja costumes!
I thought long and hard about highlighting Gymkata, but then I went to the HMV at Yonge and Dundas and saw it showcased proudly on their “Hidden Gems” display, right next to films by Werner Herzog and Michelangelo Antonioni. Kurt Thomas should be proud.

SEE THE AMAZING GYMKATA TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mkl9rtttog

Cobra Verde (1988) (Werner Herzog)
Speaking of Herzog, the great German director made five films with the borderline insane actor Klaus Kinski, including Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, and the fruits of their labour would become highlights of both their careers. Cobra Verde was their last and least-seen film together. Too bad, because it’s a lot of fun. Kinski plays a much-feared bandit who makes the mistake of impregnating all of a plantation owner’s daughters. Somewhat annoyed, the plantation banishes Kinski to South Africa. At first persecuted, Kinski quickly becomes a plantation owner himself, fathers over sixty children, and lives to regret his involvement in slavery. Cinema had no better madman than Kinski, and like any Herzog film, Cobra Verde is packed to the gills with unforgettable images (this film looks much more expensive than it probably was) – dig the massive, topless army of Amazonians!
Incidentally, if you like Cobra Verde, you might also be interested in Herzog’s film about Kinski, My Best Fiend, as well as Kinski’s no-holds-barred autobiography Kinski Uncut, in which he calls Herzog a “nasty, cowardly, treacherous creep.” Unquote.

Three…Extremes (2004) (Fruit Chan, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike)
Three…Extremes gathers together three short horror films by three of Asia’s top directors, and the result is not only my favourite horror film of the last few years, but one of the better omnibus films you’re likely to see. Park Chan-wook’s Cut is about a successful film director held captive by a disturbed bit-part actor. It’s the most intense and riveting of the bunch, playing a bit like The King of Comedy crossed with Oldboy. An unusually low-key Takashi Miike present Box, the moodiest and most visually imaginative segment. Best – and most disturbing – of all is Fruit Chan’s Dumplings, about an aging movie star who eats special dumplings known to restore youth. It would be unfair to reveal the secret ingredient, but be warned: it might have you reaching for the “eject” button. Dumpings, also available in a feature-length version, is shocking and sick, but also intelligent and thought provoking.

F for Fake (1973) (Orson Welles)
The strange, entertaining pseudo-documentary F for Fake was Orson Welles’ last competed film as a director (he called it an “essay film”). Welles came upon a documentary about the art forger Elmyr d’Hory and discovered that one of the interviewees, Clifford Irving, later wrote the infamous forged autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles re-edited the documentary footage and added a plethora of bizarre new scenes. Welles serves as narrator and on-screen host, and is an inimitable presence if there ever was one.
F for Fake is daringly original in its freestyle approach to the documentary format. Like too many of Welles’ films, F for Fake didn’t make much of an impression at the time of its release, but if ever a movie were ahead of its time: Welles’ “essay film” could be seen as a precursor to such films that blur truth and fiction as Bowling for Columbine and Borat.
F for Fake is available in an excellent two-disc DVD from the Criterion Collection. Among the extras are the documentary Orson Welles: The One-Man Band – which isn’t very good, but is nevertheless valuable for its tantalizing glimpses at unfinished Welles films – and Orson Welles’ innovative 9-minute trailer, rejected by the American distributor but every bit as good as the film itself.

Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) (Nick Broomfield)
Nick Broomfield is a household name in Britain for his rambling, Michael Moore-type first-person documentaries. Like Moore, Broomfield is the star of the show, but his style is even less polished: Broomfield actually holds his own boom mic, and his films are never just about their subjects, but also about the making of the films themselves (1998’s Kurt and Courtney has a scene with Broomfield on the phone being informed that his funding has fallen through). Broomfield’s unpolished style, however, is entirely fitting his often-grungy subject matter. You leave a Broomfield film like Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madame, Biggie and Tupac, and Kurt and Courtney with a clear understanding of the nightmarish worlds they depict.
Broomfield’s greatest achievements are his two documentaries about Aileen Wuornos, the prostitute serial killer played by Charlize Theron in Monster (2003). The first, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, isn’t so much about Wuornos as about the media circus that surrounded her arrest and trial. Broomfield highlights two especially mercenary figures: Steve Glazer, Wuornos’ shifty lawyer (“Call Dr. Legal!”) who is actually filmed smoking marijuana on his way to a meeting with his client; and, more enigmatically, Arlene Pralle, Wuornos’ Fundamentalist Christian “adoptive mother.” This documentary will haunt you with its unflinching depiction of greed and exploitation.
(PS: Broomfield’s other Wuornos documentary was 2003’s equally good Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer).

Infernal Affairs (2002) (Andrew Lau, Alan Mak)
Martin Scorsese remade this razor-sharp Hong Kong thriller into a little Oscar-winner called The Departed, and while Scorsese’s film is undeniably the greater achievement, the lightning-paced Infernal Affairs is more purely enjoyable. With Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Andy Lau, and Eric Tsang in the DiCaprio, Damon, and Nicholson roles, and with excellent crimson-hued cinematography by the great Christopher Doyle (2046, Hero), this riveting film is one of the smartest and best-crafted entertainments to come out of Hong Kong this decade.
Incidentally, the same creative team reunited in 2003 for two Infernal Affairs sequels, and well as 2006’s disappointing Confession of Pain, which Leonardo DiCaprio has optioned for an American remake. Will lightning strike twice?

Oldboy (2003) (Park Chan-wook)
A drunken lout named Oh Dae-su (brilliantly played by Choi Min-sik) is locked in a room for 15 years, and is mysteriously let free, psychologically unstable and with a thirst for vengeance. Oh forms an unlikely bond with a pretty young chef named Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong), but he encounters his captor (Yu Ji-tae), who gives him five days to find out the reason for his imprisonment, or else Mi-do will die.
The intense, electrifying Oldboy is the second film of director Park Chan-wook’s “Vengeance Trilogy,” preceded by the intriguing Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and followed by the masterpiece Lady Vengeance (2005). Oldboy won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2004 and has developed a sizable cult following in the west, and it’s not hard to see why. Drawing on influences as varied as Greek tragedy, Quentin Tarantino, and Japanese manga, this film is an immensely powerful tale of how revenge can corrupt the soul, or, on a simpler level, a damn entertaining mystery/thriller. I really, really love this movie.

Baadasssss! (2004) (Mario Van Peebles)
In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles directed the revolutionary low-budget independent production Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song, about a black gigolo who kills some racist white cops and has to go on the lam. The film, technically shoddy but infused with anger and some memorable images, shattered box office records and proved to Hollywood that there was a viable black audience. Sweetback is commonly cited as the first ‘blaxploitation’ movie, a subgenre that would lead to Shaft, Superfly, and Foxy Brown.
Over thirty years later, Melvin’s son Mario, an accomplished director in his own right, made this hilarious and oddly inspiring film about the making of Sweetback. Mario gives a charismatic performance as his own father, and as writer/director, he supplies a valuable first-hand perspective. We see that Sweetback was a true guerilla production, with Melvin telling the union bosses that it was a porn film (unions aren’t interested in pornos), ignoring permits, and getting money wherever he could get it – including a $50,000 cheque from Bill Cosby.
You don’t have to have seen Sweet Sweetback to enjoy Baadasssss! – it’s a terrifically entertaining film about how one man’s determination and quick-wittedness changed the movie industry. And when one of the cast members is Adam West, how can you go wrong?

We here at Reel Time (er…that is, me) are proud to present a new column which every week will highlight five good older films that you may have missed.

Duck, You Sucker (1972) (Sergio Leone)
Duck, You Sucker was the great Sergio Leone’s (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Once Upon a Time in the West) penultimate film, and his last film that can be categorized as a “Spaghetti Western.” For years it existed on these shores only in a heavily edited version re-titled A Fistful of Dynamite (an obvious cash-in on Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars), and was unseen by all but Leone’s most loyal fans. Only recently has it been re-released on DVD in an excellent restored edition from MGM.
Duck, You Sucker stars James Coburn as an Irish dynamite expert who becomes entangled with a despicable Mexican bandit played by Rod Steiger (yes, Rod Steiger). Together, they unwittingly become involved in the Mexican Revolution. It isn’t quite top-grade Leone, but Steiger and Coburn are both terrific, and Ennio Morricone delivers his strangest and most audacious musical score in a Leone film, which is saying a lot. It’s very entertaining in the highly stylized, epic-on-a-budget way that was distinctly Leone.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973) (Ingmar Bergman)
The recent death of Ingmar Bergman was a tragedy to anyone who really appreciates film. Some of his movies are admittedly easier to admire than to like, but at his best, Bergman was undeniably one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived.
Scenes from a Marriage is my favourite Bergman film. Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman play a seemingly happy couple whose marriage ends when he suddenly announces his intention to live with his younger mistress. Through the rest of the film, we see Josephson and Ullman reunite several times to try to sort out their emotions.
Josephson and Ullman give monumental performances, and Bergman’s direction is brilliant (notice how he uses close-ups to increase tension). Few films are this wise about the mysteries of love and affection, and almost none are more powerful.
(I also highly recommend Bergman’s under-appreciated 2003 sequel, Saraband).

Hard-Boiled (1992) (John Woo)
There are action movies, and then there is Hard-Boiled, director John Woo’s final Hong Kong production to date. Chow Yun-fat plays a tough-as-nails cop named Tequila who forms an alliance with a mild-mannered undercover officer (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) who has infiltrated the Hong Kong Triads. Their investigation ultimately leads to a hospital where the Triads have hidden an enormous weapons cache.
What follows is an extended action sequence that occupies most of the movie’s second half and is, quite simply, incredible. Pound for pound, this film may have more and better-crafted action than any film you have ever seen. No exaggeration: this is the only movie that has ever made me sweat.
Hard-Boiled exists in an out-of-print DVD from the Criterion Collection, but it has just been released on a two-disc set from “Dragon Dynasty,” the Weinstein Company’s Asian film division, which contains a bounty of extras, including a knowledgeable commentary from Asian film expert Bey Logan. If an action movie is what you’re after, I couldn’t recommend this more highly.

Bubba Ho-Tep (2003) (Don Coscarelli)
Bubba Ho-Tep imagines that Elvis Presley did not die, but traded places with an impersonator. He currently resides in a small Texas rest home, which is also the home of John F. Kennedy. Together, they must defeat a mummy who has been swallowing the souls of their fellow seniors.
If that premise isn’t enough to convince you to give this a shot, how about the fact that Elvis is played by the great Bruce Campbell, and that JFK is played by…wait for it…Ossie Davis. Yes, that Ossie Davis.
Despite its bonkers premise, Bubba Ho-Tep is actually a genuinely touching film about regret and redemption. Davis and especially Campbell (who really should have received an Oscar nomination) play their parts with strict sincerity and surprising feeling. In fact, director Don Coscarelli plays this bizarre material completely straight, and the result is a film that is funny, atmospheric, and occasionally moving. I swear.

Eros (2004) (Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni)
This three-part omnibus film, in which three of the world’s most renowned directors offered up their interpretation of the concept of eroticism, received almost no attention during its short theatrical release, and little more on DVD. I remember seeing it reviewed on Ebert and Roeper, and the two critics (who, incidentally, awarded it “Two thumbs up”) were surprised that the distributor, Warner Independent Pictures, didn’t bother to supply them with any film clips.
Much of its bad rap is because of the late Michelangelo Antonioni, whose segment, The Dangerous Thread of Things, is, to put it mildly, not among his best work. (If you want to see Antonioni, I recommend The Passenger).
But the other two segments, by Wong Kar-wai and Steven Soderbergh, are well worth the price of a rental. Wong is my favourite living director, and his highly atmospheric and downright sexy contribution, The Hand, is further proof that the man is a genius. Soderbergh’s Equilibrium is an amusing little skit that accomplishes the near-impossible task of putting Robert Downey Jr. and Alan Arkin together and making them funny, not annoying. Overall, this is an interesting film, and is worthy of more acclaim that it has received.

COMING SOON: A review of Mr. Bean’s Holiday; Fall Movie Preview