Apache Revolver #1

 Hello to what may be the last Kino Ventura blog post for 2024! It's been an exciting year for me in regards to what I do here - I've been able to contribute to a couple of zines, I was able to join the Minnesota Film Critics' Association, and I was even able to host a live screening of one of my favorite films. I wasn't sure that this additional project would be ready to launch before the month was out but it appears that the stars have aligned so I'm happy to announce the release of my new crime film zine: Apache Revolver!

This is a collection of film writing and reviews, a couple of lists, and some artwork by yours truly covering my favorite genre of film. The selections are what you might already expect from me: older, relatively underseen, largely hardboiled genre pictures from all over the world. It's 26 digest pages of writing and artwork plus the color cover and I'm selling it online for 6 bucks plus tax and shipping. If you are a fan of 70s genre pictures, yakuza films, poliziotteschi, French gangster pictures, or my writing in general, I think you'll find something to appreciate here. Even if that's not your bag, I'd love if you could help spread the word to the crime film fanatic in your life. Hopefully this goes well and there will be future issues and collaborations with other genre folks.

If you do pick it up, I'd love to hear what you think. Don't hesitate to send me an email or poke me on bluesky or instagram

It's been a hard year for a lot of people and next year doesn't look like it will be letting up on any of us. I hope you're able to stay safe, stay sane, and stay healthy and I hope you can still find time to appreciate things like wild old genre pictures. Thanks as always for checking out my stuff!

The Working Class Goes to Hell - Thief (1981)

Criterion announced Thief on 4K and Robert Prosky would have turned 94 today so I thought I would revisit and republish this older review of mine. I removed the final paragraph about availability but otherwise left this unchanged.

Two things are immediately striking upon first viewing Michael Mann’s Thief (1981)—the immaculately constructed world and the singular style in which it is presented. Everything physical in Thief feels real, seems plausible. The tools that Frank (James Caan) and his crew use, the methods they employ, and the locations they maneuver through have a tremendous authenticity to them. 

One of the keys to that authenticity is that Mann employed “technical consultants” on Thief (something he would continue to do throughout his career) that consisted of actual thieves and police. Not only did these consultants inform the methodology of the fictional robbers, but in some cases lent them the actual tools of the trade. The magnetic drill Frank hefts to penetrate a safe door in the opening sequence was a real 200 lb drill and he really drilled through that safe door.

In contrast to this realism, the stylistic elements of Thief are fantastic and alien. The city is all blacks and greens, eternally raining. Streetlights and neon line the skies and are reflected in surfaces of cars and wet asphalt. The pulsing electronic score by Tangerine Dream echoes the industrial heartbeat of the Chicago underworld (parts of the score are actually keyed to match the machine whir of the tools used for the heists). With the level of craft on display, it’s remarkable that this was a first feature both for Mann and his cinematographer Dave Thorin.

However, there’s more than mere style on display here. Thief is very much a character driven narrative and has the performances necessary to draw the viewer in. Caan’s Frank is successful. He maintains his independence, steals only cash or unset jewels, and puts his money into small businesses he can control: a car lot and a bar. He’s unattached and answers to no one. Jessie - beautifully portrayed by Tuesday Weld—is a woman with a dark past. While she seems far too glamorous to be a diner cashier, her humdrum life is one she built herself and something she can rely upon.

In one of Thief’s best scenes, the two lay their cards out on the table and decide to start a life together. This kind of confessional conversation and abrupt decision making would normally strain credulity but Caan and Weld are totally convincing as two people looking for something better and running out of time to find it.  As Frank says, “let's cut the mini-moves and the bullshit, and get on with this big romance.” 

To jump-start this new life chapter, Frank compromises his independence to work for local crime boss, Lou. Robert Prosky brings the faustian Lou vividly to life. He’s both affably paternal and later chillingly brutal, like some kind of folksy satan. Lou offers Frank and Jessie everything they’re dreaming of—money, a home, even a child—if only Frank does things Lou’s way. Of course, Frank’s not the kind of guy who can do things anyone else’s way for long. No longer unattached, Frank has to decide to submit to Lou’s yoke or risk losing everything.

Thief is a tremendously assured debut feature that’s clearly the product of meticulous preparation. Mann set the story in his hometown of Chicago and built on his experience with convicts from his television movie: The Jericho Mile. Thief contains many of the hallmarks that would define Mann’s style as a film-maker throughout his career - the way he focuses on professional details, his use of real people and locations, and his attention to the music in his films. 

Mann also has a terrific eye for supporting cast and Thief features Willie Nelson as Frank’s prison buddy, as well as solid film debuts for Jim Belushi and Dennis Farina. As sparse as the actual plot beats may be, Thief only grows in my estimation each time I revisit it. Some may find it too stylized, maybe even pretentious, but I find myself completely won over by this expertly crafted slice of genre film-making. 

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Best New-to-Me: November 2024 (The Oops! All Screenings Edition)

 Another whirlwind of a month as we all hurtle towards the end of 2024. Despite my typically sluggish rate of output on the blog, I've been watching movies and writing reviews like a man possessed. Hopefully you've had a chance to check out my Top 10 2024 Hardboiled Crime Movie List and then I am putting the absolute finishing touches on a project that I'm desperately hoping I can announce before the end of the year. With all that reviewing energy already spoken for, I thought I would focus on theatrical screenings this month as there have been quite a few of those as well. I managed to fit in a bit of everything in November - Cinema of the Macabre, press previews, MSP Film Club, Cult Film Collective, and even a road trip (rail trip, actually) to Chicago that included a movie. It's easy to feel powerless in the face of everything that's going on in the world so it's a real sanctuary to have films and creative projects to focus on. Let's get into it.

Tenebre (1982) - Dario Argento's climax of stylized violence and last great statement on the giallo film he was so integral in pioneering. Argento would still make some good films post-Tenebre but nothing quite as affecting ever again. Much like Suspiria, one of the great joys of seeing Tenebre theatrically is that the (essentially) Goblin music is so loud in the mix that it's nearly deafening in a cinema sound system. Argento also provides some deliriously blood drenched imagery to pair with the pulsing soundscape. The result may be more nightmare logic than murder mystery but I never tire of it.

The Last Thing She Saw (2024) - This wild and gruesome short played before Tenebre and the co-directors were in attendance. This was a fun surprise and absolutely the right crowd for it. 

Gladiator II (2024) - The latest epic from Ridley Scott and sequel to the film that turned me off the Academy Awards for the rest of my life. Scott claims this is his finest work and I actually thought its strength was the realization that it was a big, dumb spectacle without taking itself too seriously. Paul Mescal (who I loved in Aftersun and All of Us Strangers) is grossly miscast as the grim faced lead, but otherwise Gladiator II seems to be having a lot of fun. Killer baboons, a rhino riding champion, friggin' sharks in the Colosseum? Denzel Washington is clearly having a blast as the ambitious Macrinus and the ancient Rome depicted in the film looks good for the most part (those baboons are rough). I think this should win best picture and then none of us need to care about the Oscars anymore. 

The Brutalist (2024) - Yes, the runtime is completely daunting but there's an immensity to The Brutalist that I think justifies the length. From a craft and scope perspective, it's an astonishing film. Colossal, chaotic, transcendent, discordant, and brilliantly composed. The sound design is impeccable and the VistaVision photography is an absolute stunner. I do think, ultimately, that it is ideologically muddled. Not in the way in which the world is filled with complicated people and ambiguities, but in the way that it touches on things without offering a perspective. I also think the ending sucks. It's brilliantly executed (to look like real archival materials) but commits the opposite sin of over-explaining the meaning of the architectural works featured in the film at you. It's still an amazing film and I'm so glad I saw it in the theater.

Anora (2024) - I'm not sure how to approach this one. Everyone loves it, but I do not. I found the first act largely uninteresting, thought the second picked up admirably, but not enough to really care about the finale. There are some good performances and nice photography, but I do not find Anora revelatory the same way other people seem to. I did see this at 11am and there were some issues with the presentation, so that could possibly have soured me on it. I'm going to have to give it another watch, but I found this my least favorite Sean Baker joint so far. 

Little Murders (1971) - My wife and I decided to take the train down from the Twin Cities to Chicago, in part because Samm Deighan was going to be at the Music Box to introduce and discuss Little Murders. Murders is one of the many films in the book Samm co-edited and contributed to, Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960–1990. First of all, the book is great and you should definitely snag a copy - I read most of it on the train and my watchlist has grown tremendously as a direct result. I have long wanted an excuse to visit the Music Box and it didn't disappoint. It's a gorgeous theater and I especially love the little side lounge providing that much needed space to congregate before or after a movie. I have seen Little Murders before but never with an audience and I couldn't help but be reminded of my experience watching De Palma's Hi, Mom! Both films are made in the same era of NYC and have some politically connective tissue - I like them both but think Murders is the smarter film. Most importantly, both are at times wildly hilarious while being deeply sobering at others. The audience was erupting in raucous, cathartic laughter throughout Murders but you could practically hear a pin drop by the finale. 

Afterwards, I had a chance to meet Samm and Brian (Weekend Nachos drummer, bootleg shirt wizard, and fellow Eros + Massacre listener), chat a little and take some photos. Unfortunately, we couldn't hang out too late as we had a train to catch in the morning. Still, it's always great to connect with people after getting to know them online. 

…All the Marbles (1981) -  I have been DYING to see Marbles for ages and I can't imagine a better way to do it than on 16mm in the back room of the Eagles Lodge while eating pierogies and drinking beers. Robert Aldrich's final film before his untimely demise and both a thrilling and pessimistic look into women's professional wrestling and what it takes to hustle in this country. Aldrich shot the shit out of this film and the wrestling sequences look amazing. Apparently the training and fight choreography was managed by wrestling legend Mildred Burke and it's all very convincing. The cast is absolutely stacked with character actors from my favorite period of American filmmaking and though there's plenty of studio shot sequences - there's some fantastic location footage from Chicago, Reno, and some towns in Ohio. Marbles is essentially an underdog sports film but there is a prevalent dark undercurrent to it. The Hollywood Dolls have to navigate murky waters to achieve their dreams and the rust belt backdrop gives everything an air of industrial collapse. Marbles is a much more interesting film than it needs to be and I'm so glad to have finally caught it.

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Best of Harboiled Crime - 2024

For Noirvember this year I decided to do something a little different. Rather than burrow into classic and obscure noir films from the past, I wanted to watch, re-watch, and review some of 2024s crime film output. Film noir and neo-noir are slippery enough genres to get one's hands around and "hardboiled" crime might be trickier yet, but I think the following films contain sufficient explicit crime content to distinguish them from broader categories.

10. American Star - American Star is a character driven, atmospheric approach to the contemplative aging assassin canon. Gonzalo López-Gallego's reserved filmmaking places significant weight on Ian McShane's force of personality as well as beautifully desolate footage of Fuerteventrua, but I found myself willing to take the ride. McShane's Wilson is forced to wait for an anticipated target and spends his time exploring the island and interacting with both fellow travelers and the locals. Events take a turn when a fellow assassin from his past lands on the island to ensure the job is done correctly. The titular American Star refers to an actual ocean liner that wrecked off of Fuerteventura's coast and presents an object of fascination for Wilson. American Star is not a genre thrill ride but is enjoyable on its own terms if you understand what you're getting into. I found it thoughtful and lyrical and there are some wonderfully delicate scenes. The film ultimately cannot escape violence anymore than Wilson can so blood is definitely shed before the credits roll.

9. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In - Arguably more martial arts throwdown than capital "C" crime film, Soi Cheang's Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is still enough of a triad brotherhood drama to land it a spot on this list. Raymond Lam plays a mainland refugee with formidable fighting prowess who manages to find sanctuary and a surrogate family in the Kowloon Walled City. Living legend, Sammo Hung, plays an avaricious crime boss who wants to carve out his own territory in the City so he can profit on its eventual redevelopment. I sometimes struggle with 21st Century HK cinema - it's too glossy for my preferences and often leans into CGI in unfortunately ways. The Kowloon Walled City setting adds some much needed lived in texture in Twilight to contrast the larger than life action sequences. The city (naturally) needed to be recreated for the film and its labyrinthine, multistory immensity provides a interesting backdrop for the innovative, hard hitting fight sequences. Twilight does escape the gravity of reality for more of a comic/manga sensibility at times, but it's having so much fun doing so it's impossible not to get swept up in it.

8. Borderless Fog - Modern Indonesian action and horror seem to be having a moment, but Edwin's Borderless Fog largely dispenses with genre excesses to deliver a straightlaced, steely police procedural. Putri Marino plays a Jakarta detective who is travels to investigate a series of macabre killings along the Indonesian-Malaysian border. There is a unique socio-political context operating in Borderless Fog and I don't pretend to understand all of the nuances. Significant tension surrounds the Dayak people in the film and their autonomy in the face of Indonesian authority as well as the oversight of jurisdiction between Indonesia and Malaysia. Even if I don't have the context to interpret all of this - I do love a border noir and I found these details added some interesting wrinkles to the proceedings. While there is nothing overtly supernatural in Borderless Fog - it is still very dark, mysterious, and even strange at times. I found myself hooked into it immediately and it also features multiple severed heads for anyone questioning its hardboiled bona fides.

7. LaRoy, Texas - Shane Atkinson makes his feature debut with a Texas noir trip down to Coen Bros. territory. LaRoy is a ranging detective story starring John Magaro as a depressed hardware store manager (Ray) who is mistaken for a traveling hitman (Dylan Baker) and slips into a knotty conspiracy of infidelity, blackmail, murder, and betrayal. Steve Zahn plays a wannabe detective sporting a bolo tie and an oversized cowboy hat who bullies Ray into investigating the mystery only to sink further into trouble. None of this is strikingly original territory but it's rendered exceedingly well. Buoyed by a terrific ensemble - Zahn is as good here as I've ever seen him - and amidst the absurdity there's a lonesome darkness at the heart of this tale. LaRoy offers a distinctly evocative noir look - bleak earth tone days give way to expressive red and blue nights - and I believe this is cinematogrpaher Ming Jue Hu's feature debut as well.

6. The Shadow Strays - The all-violence MVP of this list. Timo Tjahjanto's epic assassin vengeance tale blends some Besson-ian plot threads into a exhaustingly brutal series of fight scenes and action set-pieces. Aurora Ribero stars as 13, a young member of an elite squad of trained killers (they're basically ninjas) known as the Shadows. After fumbling during a mission to Japan, 13 is sent back home to lay low where she becomes nearly instantaneously embroiled in a criminal conspiracy involving the kid living next door. The Shadow Strays employs only the barest skeleton of a plot or character motivations but makes up for that with a non-stop supply of gory, pulpy gangster insanity. Ribero's 13 is convincingly capable and resolute but the real fun is in the rogues' gallery of antagonists: A giggling psychopathic cop, a shotgun wielding madam, an inhuman hulk of an assassin, and spoiled rich kid sporting a gimp mask and a white Tony Montana suit. There are plenty of vfx "enhanced" sequences in Strays but the bedrock of the film is made of bone crunching fighting and stunt work. Some people definitely got set on fire to make this movie happen. At nearly two and a half hours, burnout is an understandable reaction to the marathon of onscreen mayhem and there's a postscript that I'm not sure how I feel about. Still, the action goes to such extremes that I was shaking my head in disbelief until the very end.

5. The Last Stop in Yuma County - Francis Galluppi's remarkably assured feature debut certainly shows influence from filmmakers in a similar milieu but also features a wonderfully charismatic ensemble, dark humor that actually lands, and a genuine facility for building suspense until it boils over in a thrillingly brutal climax. The early phase of the film consists of travelers stranded in a nowheresville service station/diner with a pair of fugitive bank robbers due to the lack of gas. Not everyone is aware of the criminals' true identity and this uncertainty propels much of the drama until things inevitably detonate in a satisfyingly gnarly standoff. From there ill-considered plans turn apocalyptically awful resulting in a soberingly grim conclusion. Yuma County's cast is solid all the way through featuring Jim Cummings as a anxiety ridden salesman wondering how he found himself in such a mess and Richard Brake positively exuding menace as one of the bank robbers. Yuma County is the kind of smaller, smart, stylish genre exercise I find easy to root for and I hope Galluppi turns his talents towards more crime features down the line.

4. The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon - Wong Ching-Po's The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon starts as a plausible, if high octane, action/crime thriller - gangsters, cops, foot chases through narrow corridors, bone shattering close range fisticuffs - and then takes a breath before becoming a much weirder movie. The plot is very loosely based on Zhou Chu and the Three Scourges: Ethan Juan is a notorious gangster (Chen Kui-lin) with a terminal diagnosis hanging over his head who decides to take on the other two most wanted men in Taiwan before he turns himself in or dies in the effort. The first leg of his journey is a nighttime vigilante mission where he meets a young woman essentially enslaved by his first target. The second part eschews neon lights and city streets for blinding daylight and pastoral scenes involving a spiritual organization/cult. Further mysteries are revealed before Pigeon erupts in one of the bloodiest, most nihilistic climaxes I've seen all year. It's a moment that truly harkens back to the East Asian cinematic insanity of the late 20th Century. Great, magnetic performances - not only from Juan but from the gangsters as well. Pigeon is unrelentingly violent, some of it coursing with adrenaline and other moments are startlingly abrupt. The plot certainly isn't predictable and even if the denouement goes on a little long - it hits like a ton of bricks by the end.

3. Love Lies Bleeding - Rose Glass' neon and synth drenched neo-noir revenge saga set around a New Mexico bodybuilding gym looks and sounds tremendous. It's swimming in blood, drugs, food, sweat, muscles, and guns. Irrepressibly carnal at times but also pervasively gross - including touches of body horror. Katy O'Brien's athletic stature clearly fits the needs of the story and she delivers an excellent performance as well - especially during some of the quieter moments before things get increasingly heightened. Kristen Stewart continues to be a supremely compelling screen presence and her instincts and line deliveries are impeccable here. I'd also say Ed Harris is brilliantly weird and sinister every time he's on screen. I'm 98-99% totally infatuated with Love Lies Bleeding. I think the first hour of scenario and character building is unimpeachable and I'm still on board as Bleeding follows Jackie (O'Brien) down a steroid and violence fueled trajectory of instability becoming increasingly surreal. However, I struggle with the level of magical realism employed in the finale. The stakes are ratcheted up ferociously and I crave something less fanciful in the resolution. Still, everything leading up to that is masterful and I rate Love Lies Bleeding highly for the year.

2. Outlaw - Electric, visually chaotic, and bursting with streetwise authenticity, João Wainer's Outlaw may, in fact, be the most hardboiled film I've seen this year. Based on Raquel de Oliveira's 2015 memoir, Outlaw features Maria Bomani as Rebeca, a street kid in the Rocinha favela who grows up to be one of the most feared drug lords in Rio de Janeiro. The subject matter unyieldingly brutal - Rebeca is sold to a drug dealer and pedophile by her gambling addict grandmother after being abandoned by her mother. She narrowly avoids the sex trade but is no less indoctrinated into the world of gangs, drug trafficking, and violence. Wainer renders the ensuing tale of crime, money, love, power, and betrayal with an anarchic, maximalist approach to filmmaking. Outlaw careens through aspect ratios, color, black & white, high def, low res video, archival footage, and even back and forth through time like a hail of bullets through the favela. It's an explosive, disorienting approach but it suits the onscreen bedlam perfectly. Maria Bomani is an absolute revelation in the role of Rebeca - tough as nails, smart, sexy, and capable in the midst of a firefight as well as the thoughtful narrator of the film. Outlaw is reminiscent of 90s L.A. street gang stories as far as its driving narrative arc, but it's a much grimier style and the focus on a female protagonist still feels singular today.

1. The Order - Based on the real events involving the titular group of radical white supremacists, Justin Kruzel's The Order is a magnificently taut heist thriller/police procedural in the vein of Michael Mann or Peter Yates. Jude Law plays FBI agent Terry Husk who instead of finding a quiet post away from high profile cases starts pulling threads connected to an increasingly dangerous group of domestic terrorists. Nicholas Hoult plays the young leader of the burgeoning militia and manages to be chillingly threatening without becoming a caricature. The crime content of the film is outrageously good. Bombings, heists, and shootouts are executed with white knuckle tension set to the metronomic score from Jed Kurzel. This is a period piece and it does feel like a bit of a nod to crime films of the 70s and early 80s - The Order is played perfectly straight and shows a professional fascination with how both criminals and law enforcement operate. My initial reaction was that the white separatists were shown as too competent - but reading into the backstory, they were actually frighteningly organized and effective. Jude Law is admirably grizzled as Husk and the supporting cast (especially Tye Sheridan and Jurnee Smollett) lend sturdy performances as well. Overall just the kind of intelligent, impactful genre filmmaking I love to see.

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