Eenie Meanie (2025)

 It truly feels like fans of gritty crime genre fare are eating well this month and the trend continues with Shawn Simmons' debut feature - Eenie Meanie.  Simmons delivers this heist thriller with a dose of black comedy and some absolutely bracing car chase action sequences. The film stars Samara Weaving as the titular  Edie "Eenie Meanie" - a moniker she earned as a teenage getaway driver working with her disaster of a boyfriend, Karl Glusman's John. Recent years have seen Edie get clear of both the Cleveland underworld apparatus and her chaotic relationship with John so she can focus on building something closer to a normal existence. Edie is drawn back into John's orbit which lands her immediately in the crosshairs of mob violence only to find herself under the yoke of local crime boss - Nico (Andy Garcia). Nico offers lenience in the matter of John's latest lethal fiasco in exchange for Edie pulling another job for him - stealing a Dodge Charger loaded with 3 million dollars in poker tournament winnings right off of a casino floor.

There's a lot to appreciate about Eenie Meanie and it feels like a throwback genre picture in important ways. Simmons worked with stunt coordinator Paul Jennings (Jack Reacher) to construct two main chase sequences that leverage practical effects with tremendous results. I'm the opposite of a gearhead (my sympathies lie closer to Edie's uptight manager who extols the virtues of bus passes), but the automotive action in Meanie is much more than mere car porn. The chases are gripping and visceral; and despite featuring a raging stoner riff laden soundtrack, they never feel like music videos. Undoubtedly some VFX were applied to the final film, but Simmons shows the restraint not to cover up fantastic practical stunts with thick digital veneer. Complementing the authenticity of the stunt sequences is the fact that so much of the film appears to be shot on location throughout Cleveland and Toledo. I do not have a deep knowledge of the area but it's hard to resist a film with such a strong sense of place. The bars, warehouses, bodegas, and city streets root this admittedly pulpy storyline in something more tangible. Finally, while crime dynasty epics are a fine thing, I confess that I prefer off-kilter, smaller stakes underworld stories. They lend themselves well to comedic interludes (Mike O'Malley kills it as Nico's lieutenant who is as concerned with Nico's diet as he is with running the business) and they allow room for a weirder collection of characters. Besides the two leads, Meanie is filled with great faces - especially Marshawn Lynch as a competing getaway driver and Chris Bauer as an exceptionally taciturn bar owner. 

For everything that I loved about Eenie Meanie, I found a few things less appealing. John's character is clearly intended to be a trainwreck with his goofy charisma and devotion to Edie as his saving graces. It's a tough character to pull off and certainly meant as representative of the kinds of insane relationships people find themselves in, but I struggled to come around to John's charms. Also, while the film starts with neck-breaking velocity and doesn't let up for some time - things do get perceptibly sluggish before the climax. I can't begrudge a film some quiet moments for context and character building, but it felt a bit slack overall. Sometimes these moments either need to be fortified in a longer format story or pruned away for the sake of momentum. Luckily things return to form once the heist commences and the finale hits like a sledgehammer. Eenie Meanie has some killer action, is legitimately funny, and executes plenty of what makes hard hitting crime stories work. My only regret is that I didn't get to see those chases on the big screen.

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Honey Don't! (2025)

While I appreciated the intention of Ethan Coen's and Tricia Cooke's first installment of their lesbian B-movie trilogy, Drive Away Dolls, I struggled to fully get in tune with its wavelength. The film took large helpings of Coen caper hallmarks and tossed them into the blender with coming-of-age road trip energy and some genuinely weird stylistic decisions. I could see the charm and I lauded the frank sexuality of the film, but the result was more live action cartoon than classic drive-in programmer. Now we have Dolls' spiritual sequel - Honey Don't - which maintains some of the same ethos of its predecessor translated to a neo-noir detective story. Margaret Qualley stars again, this time as the titular private investigator in and around a palpably dusty Bakersfield, CA. The story begins with a classic set up - a potential client for Honey turns up dead. The local police, led by a inept Charlie Day, declare it an accident but Honey starts to tease at the deeper details. She winds up digging into a local cult led by Chris Evans and as well as in bed with a world weary policewoman played by Aubrey Plaza. The plot beats will be recognizable to anyone familiar with pulp detective tropes - drugs, corruption, a missing girl, a femme fatale, even a classic protagonist blackout. However, they don't cohere in a particularly satisfying way and at the end of its brisk 88 minutes, you may find yourself with more questions than answers.

I confess that I quite enjoyed Qualley as Honey O'Donahue. Her hard drinking, hard quipping, sexually motivated if emotionally unavailable P.I. had enough grit and style to appeal even if the character wasn't totally revelatory. I cannot fathom why Coen and Cooke insist on having Qualley do accents, but I found her New York tinged dialogue less distracting than her wildly outsized drawl from the previous film. Oddly, it is revealed that O'Donahue is a local which leaves her accent as much of a mystery as her immaculate 40s inspired wardrobe. This is a common thread throughout the film - aspects of both the plot and the world are introduced and the reasons behind their existence are rarely revealed. It's as if Coen and Cooke were reading Chandler and decided that the success of The Big Sleep is due to the incoherence of its plot and not in spite of it. We're introduced to Reverend Drew Devlin (Evans), his bizarre cult, and the criminal activity that underpins it early in the film - Honey's investigation naturally leads her on a collision course straight to them. Evans accounts reasonably well for himself and it functions as a fair critique of evangelical grifters - but how this figures into the central mystery of the film comes off as flimsy by the finale. Two aspects of Honey do satisfy even after the credits roll - One is some absolutely ridiculous gory violence and the second is the heat between Honey and Aubrey Plaza's MG. Their initial meet and first "date" rekindle some of that fervent sexual energy from Dolls though, as this is a ultimately a more pessimistic film, the good times cannot last. 

I think the attempt here was to capture some of the strange, laconic atmosphere that a handful of the reinvented noirs of the 70s employed (Less Chinatown and more The Big Fix) and that speaks to me. There's an almost dreamlike sequence where Honey considers the existence of the downtrodden in Bakersfield and how that connects to the local bus. It reminded me in a small way of the Art Carney obscurity and personal favorite - The Late Show. I fear I may be projecting more of Coen's and Cooke's influences on Honey than what actually turns up on the screen. Of course the tone of those earlier films - not exactly laugh out loud funny, not particularly action packed, deliberately esoteric - didn't win over many fans at the time, either. Whether this is truly reaching back towards those orphaned genre curiosities or just a bit of a muddle will likely require another watch from me - however, I think I'll be happy to do so.

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Americana (2025)

It can be difficult not to note the influence of Pulp Fiction when you're faced with a film like Americana - feature debut from writer/director Tony Tost. Despite Americana's rural South Dakotan (with a touch of Wyoming) setting, I immediately started drawing connections to Tarantino's iconic L.A. crime tale  - Somewhat elliptical narrative, discreet titled chapters, unflinchingly violent, still quite funny in parts, and a noticeably intentional musical palette.  There's even a classic moment of a tough guy (a Native American resistance fighter brilliantly played by Zahn McClarnon) discussing the pop cultural influences that led him to adopting his current moniker, Ghost Eye.  I wouldn't call Americana derivative, though, and I think Tost brings a thoughtfulness to his film that helps nail down a tone that many attempt and few manage well. In addition to the crime milieu, Tost is also playing with the Western genre and this is where Americana gets the most interesting for me. I'm not the world's foremost expert on horse operas, but I caught more than one verbal and visual reference to notable predecessors - Old shoot em' ups on television screens, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid is invoked, and a doorway shot that could have been plucked right out of Sergio Leone film. The archetypes of the genre are also clearly on display - Americana features contemporary incarnations of cowboys and Indians and eventually sets them in conflict against each other. In this story, the fight isn't a territorial dispute but one over a piece of cultural history, a ghost shirt, appropriated by an affluent white man and considered valuable enough that other men will steal and kill to get their hands on it. 

Desire drives most of the noirish narrative in Americana - the shirt represents a chance at wealth and an opportunity to get out of South Dakota. Halsey's Mandy wants to sell the shirt to finally break free of all the toxic men in her life and find somewhere safe for her little brother Cal (who, often hilariously, believes he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull). Sydney Sweeney's Penny Jo dreams of a singing career in Nashville, despite her stammering speech, and sees the shirt as her ticket out. Regardless of their flaws, Tost demonstrates a real affection for his characters and that affection is best demonstrated by Paul Walter Hauser playing the guileless, lovelorn Lefty Ledbetter. Unlike the other characters in the film, Lefty isn't looking for riches - he only wants to fall in love and share his life with a nice girl. The object of his affections becomes Penny Jo which inevitably pulls him into the hunt for the ghost shirt - misguided maybe, but hardly greedy. 

Each party and faction is inexorably drawn to the shirt for a final showdown at an off -grid Wyoming compound that isn't explicitly defined but is clearly driven by some kind of patriarchal, separatist hierarchy. The plot mechanics that pull everyone to this conflict faltered a bit for me, but the climax absolutely delivers in the kind of glorious shootout worthy of the best Westerns. The final moments involve both emotional reunifications and some tragic departures - but I especially appreciate that the women of the film (so often abused and overlooked in even the best examples of the genre) are granted the most catharsis and get at least some of what they were looking for.

Americana is darkly funny, violent, and presents an authentic and unique sense of place. It's getting a theatrical release this week (8/15) and is well worth seeking out.

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Two-Fisted Soul - Truck Tuner (1974)

This review was originally published in Klon Waldrip's Ghastly Horror Society zine. I've republished it here in memoriam of Jonathan Kaplan.

Big Brother is Comin’ and He’s Comin’ On Strong!

All American International Pictures wanted out of Truck Turner was a kickass Isaac Hayes score and enough action footage to cut a decent trailer. The script had been bouncing around for years and when it failed to come together as hardboiled crime flick intended for Bob Mitchum or Lee Marvin, the producers decided to make it a “black” movie and reached out to Hayes. AIP’s hope was to replicate the double fisted success of Shaft and deliver decent box office performance alongside a hit record. For his part, Hayes was willing to ink the music deal provided he got to star in the movie (after winning the original song Oscar for Shaft, he had no shortage of offers). Jonathan Kaplan had been attached to direct since the Mitchum/Marvin discussions and wasn’t sure what to make of the “Black Moses of Soul” but went out to meet his new leading man. The two hit it off almost immediately due to their shared love of Otis Redding, Kaplan’s passing resemblance to Stax Records stalwart Donald “Duck” Dunn, and a mutual conviction that the film as written wasn’t much fun. They agreed that to better suit both Hayes’ temperament and their artistic convictions, they’d inject the straightforward crime story with humor and heart while still delivering on the tunes and action enough to fill five trailers.

When He’s Baddest, He’s the Best!

Truck Turner’s set up changed very little from the early drafts, but the plot did go through some evolution – Mac “Truck” Turner was a former gridiron star turned .357 Magnum packing skip tracer in L.A. He and his partner Jerry take a risky job to bring in a violent pimp by the name of Gator. Gator is killed in the pursuit and his lover and stable madam, Dorinda, offers a bounty of her stable of women to any pimp in L.A. who can take Turner out. The details are heavy, but the delivery is light. Turner is introduced as a slovenly, oversleeping cat-dad (Harry Callahan, he ain’t) and he and Jerry (Alan Weeks) give each other shit over cars and women. When Turner indulges in a fistfight with a racist blowhard they’re hauling in, Jerry rolls his eyes like he’s seen this dozens of times before. Besides his friendship with Jerry, Turner’s relationship with his thief girlfriend Annie (Annazette Chase) infuses a lot of heart to the film. Hayes’ performance is solid, he’s essentially playing himself on camera, but Chase is good enough to bring substantial emotional heft to their scenes. Nichelle Nichols undeniably steals the whole damn show as Dorinda. Tough, foul mouthed, and mean – apparently Nichelle adlibbed much of Dorinda’s dialogue and she crams as many “bitches” and “motherfuckers” into every scene as she can. Heartbreakingly for genre fans, this was a one-off performance for Nichols who would immediately retire from the blaxploitation racket. Fortunately, she left us with gems like “Gentlemen, this is my family. These all prime cut bitches, $238,000 worth of dynamite. It's Fort Knox in panties.” Rounding out the main cast is Yaphet Kotto as Harvard Blue, the hardest and most pragmatic of the L.A. pimps. Kotto wasn’t particularly interested in Turner but he was going through a divorce and needed the scratch. In a way, this works for his character. While everyone else in the film seems to be having the time of their lives; Harvard Blue brings a sober, “sick of your shit” attitude that pairs beautifully with Kotto’s inherent gravitas. It’s not the most charming Kotto’s been on screen, but he makes you believe that he’s bad.

When He Gets It On, the Action Takes Off!

Kaplan was well aware of what his producers were looking for in the dailies and his attitude towards action sequences was that if they were completely over-the-top, he could maintain a more lighthearted tone. He absolutely nails that in some sequences: during a high-speed car chase, a pimp barrels through a baby cart filled with bagels for no discernable reason. The “Pimp Funeral” is one of the more notorious sequences in the film: a procession of candy colored “pimpmobiles” delivers a coterie of Gator’s associates decked out in everything from mourning veils to rainbow wigs to jeweled eyepatches (the look of the working girls was supposedly derived from the Pointer Sisters). Along with his editor, Michael Kahn (Spielberg’s go-to guy for decades), Kaplan’s facility for visual storytelling makes for stylish, propulsive, hard-hitting (they used the punching sounds from Enter the Dragon) filmmaking even if visual continuity gets tossed out the window on occasion. Because the crew had to work fast and on-budget, they utilize a ton of fantastic location footage from mid-70s L.A.: fistfights and chases erupt through Skid Row, dive bars, insane mansions, and even a water treatment plant. Kaplan also cranks the violence up to eleven showcasing some blood-drenched brutality. There’s a distinct shift in tone for the final 30 minutes of the film resulting in some truly visceral shootouts and carnage. Is it funny? I’m not so sure that it is, but it’s cinematic as hell.

By 1974 the initial wave of blaxploitation pictures was losing steam. Both Shaft and Superfly were subjected to less heralded sequels and studios were beginning to combine elements of horror or martial arts to help invigorate the genre. Truck Turner distinguished itself from the pack with its comedic leanings and freewheeling style. It’s not the toughest blaxploitation flick, and it’s certainly not the meanest, but it’s arguably the most fun. See it now, see it again, and see it with an audience if you can. 

She Rides Shotgun (2025)

She Rides Shotgun is a film I've been looking forward to since hearing its announcement. It arrives boasting serious talent behind the camera including director Nick Rowlands (Calm with Horses) and a screenplay from Super Dark Times writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski. However, my enthusiasm was mostly due to my having so loved the source novel of the same title by Jordan Harper. Harper has unleashed a handful of books that incorporate economical prose, gritty violence, and a genuine facility for cinematic fights, chases, and twisty reveals. Of course, adaptations of even the finest written work can falter when translated to film and I did have questions on how some aspects of the novel would be incorporated. However, I'm happy to report that Shotgun delivers a taut, well executed, potently performed genre piece that may be the perfect antidote to anyone fatiguing from blockbuster season.

The story of the film, in broad strokes, is essentially that of the book: Nate McClusky (Taron Egerton) has recently been released from prison - however he earned the enmity of a powerful Aryan gang while inside and now has a "green light" for his death as well as the death of his family hanging over him. Nate finds his daughter Polly (Ana Sophia Heger) so that the two can hide, survive, and possibly escape the threat of murderous gang members and those in their sphere of influence. Polly, who hasn't seen Nate in years, is naturally suspicious and frightened and what follows is as much a story of the two learning to relate to one another as it is a chase story - though it is still punctuated with tense sequences of action and violence. The success of the film is heavily indebted to the stand out performances from the two leads. Egerton, against type, manages to convincingly walk the tightrope between an edgy ex-con capable of intense physical brutality when called upon and a genuinely caring parent. Ana Sophia Heger may well be giving the child performance of the year, absolutely embodying the intelligent, independent Polly who is both keenly perceptive but also still a young child being subjected to a tsunami of emotional trauma. The first 15 minutes of the film beautifully establish Nate and Polly's rapport with each other - allowing their mutual suspicion to pare away naturally and give way to a fragile, but vital, trust.

Shotgun features some tremendous supporting roles as well, notably John Carroll Lynch as the sheriff in a county outside of Albuquerque (where much of the film takes place) that also happens to house one of the largest meth labs in the state. Lynch is capable of both a folksy charisma and chilling menace and transitions seamlessly between them in a scene where he questions and tortures a wayward heroin mule caught in his territory. My favorite bit of casting has to be  Rob Yang as Detective John Park. Park, in the novel, is written as a committed career investigator who is obsessed with the chase and finding his quarry. Yang does embody some of this aspect but he also delivers it with an intellectual remove that adds another layer of interest to the character. I'm mostly familiar with Yang as a television actor but I would love to see him lead a crime/thriller film of his own.

Stylistically, Shotgun feels like a film with a real budget behind it. There are some breathtaking shots of the New Mexico landscape at twilight that give way to almost alien darkness dotted with city lights stretching out into the distance. The exteriors are paired with some novel neo-noir interiors including a dimly lit roadside trailer "trucker's chapel." Much of the movie centers on the evolving relationship between Nate and Polly, but the action is visceral when it arrives. The fight sequences are awkward and nasty - feeling much more like the reality of violence than action movie choreography. The film does allow for a highly cinematic car chase between Nate and the local police - it bends plausibility but never breaks it and it's hard to resist genre goods delivered so expertly. The climax lands somewhat clumsily for me, but it's still a solid action sequence that allows for some fantastically villainous stuff from Lynch. The denouement again gives Heger a platform to capture startling emotional complexity from a performer so young.

She Rides Shotgun is getting a limited theatrical release starting today (08/01/2025) and I would highly recommend you seek it out if it is playing near you. A friend recently asked me if mid-budget crime films and thrillers are clawing their way back into the theater and I'd like to think that they are. This one is too good to miss.

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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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Larceny on the Open Road - Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

(This was originally published on an older blog of mine in 2019) 

Michael Cimino had some early success working on the screenplays for Silent Running and Magnum Force which was enough to land him in the director’s chair after selling his Thunderbolt and Lightfoot screenplay to Clint Eastwood’s production company. What followed was something combining a heist movie and a road picture featuring Jeff Bridges as the young drifter (Lightfoot) and Eastwood’s veteran thief (Thunderbolt). 

There’s nothing necessarily slow about this film—the opening erupts with a shootout and a car theft—but there’s a definite hangout vibe that permeates the action. Cimino isn’t afraid to take his time and let us wander with Eastwood and Bridges across the open landscapes of Idaho and Montana as they move from one jam to the next. The men pursuing Thunderbolt—George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis—are former partners who believe they were on the receiving end of a doublecross after their last heist. After a brief physical confrontation with Red (Kennedy), Thunderbolt convinces the two to bury the hatchet and work together.

The four decide to attempt the same job again where they rob a Montana bank using an anti-tank gun to blow through the vault walls. To collect information and funds to pull the caper off, they all move in together and work odd jobs—including Lewis hilariously as an ice cream man. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot has a definite streak of eccentric comedy running through it. The funny bits sometimes come in big moments like when the pair is picked up by a crazed driver with caged racoon in his passenger seat and a trunk filled with rabbits.  There are also lovely understated details like Lightfoot’s ice cream slowly melting in his hand while being made to freeze at gunpoint. 

Despite the comedy the overall feel of the film is bittersweet. This melancholy lends Thunderbolt and Lightfoot more of a meditative quality and particularly colors the film’s finale . The main performances are excellent (Bridges earned an Academy Award nomination for his) and the supporting cast is filled with character actors and notable 70s screen presences—Catherine Bach, Gary Bussey, Jack Dodson, Burton Gilliam, and Dub Taylor—just to name a few. There are several Eastwood regulars in the cast and crew, including Dee Barton who contributes a fantastic score. Paul Williams’ original song for the picture—“Where Do I Go from Here”—conveys a wandering sadness that’s a perfect accompaniment to the film.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is not a perfect picture. It’s a little loose and some of the gags have not aged very well. However, the shagginess is part of the appeal and there’s a certain warmth and subtlety in the film’s best moments. I think heist fans will appreciate the film but it’s especially easy to recommend to New Hollywood fans and/or Eastwood fans. 

I decided to republish this review because Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was just released on 4K from Kino Lorber: https://kinolorber.com/product/thunderbolt-and-lightfoot-4kuhd

Poetry of Place - Neige (1981)

 There's nothing in my heart but the fear of dying old

The denizens of Juliet Berto's Neige may not fear personal death, but their lives are tinged with anxiety over loss - loss of friends, loss of family, loss of liberty, and (for many) loss of the fix they need to transcend their immediate surroundings. Neige chronicles a few days among a loose conglomeration of musicians, dealers, drug users, sex workers, and an assortment of characters living and hustling on and around the streets of Pigalle. While ostensibly focused on a barista, Anita played by Berto, the looseness translates to the narrative of the film as well. The plot contains straightforward crime story landmarks but the film prefers to wander through the streets along with its characters. Conversations feel overheard, the music is purely diegetic and provided by peep shows, café bands, record shops, and from the headphones of Bobby - a young street dealer played by Ras Paul Nephtali. Anita feels some maternal responsibility towards Bobby, and she tries to caution him as the heat from the police intensifies in the neighborhood. Bobby's youthful confidence and perhaps a misunderstanding of the sermons from Jocko, a charismatic (if not particularly pious) pastor, lead him to believe he cannot be caught. When the cops do finally close in on Bobby, it ends in violence. Deprived of their main conduit for heroin (snow/neige), the neighborhood starts fraying at the edges. Anita encounters Betty, a trans cabaret performer and addict, coming down hard in the street. Betty's habit is severe and she begs Anita to find her a fix. Despite their relative inexperience with heroin and the drought conditions in the neighborhood; Anita, Jocko, and Anita's boyfriend Willy all set out to score so that they can keep their friend alive. Their pursuit forces them out of their familiar enclave and onto a collision course with the authorities. 

Neige was Berto's first directorial collaboration with Jean-Henri Roger. The two would go on to direct another atmospheric genre picture, Cap Canaille, two years later. Berto was primarily known then (as she is now) for her acting; particularly for her work with Godard and Rivette. Neige is an incredibly assured debut film and Berto's experience in cinematic story telling and exposure to non-traditional narratives is evident. There are sufficient story details to cling to but the principle concern of Neige is to create a portrait of Pigalle and its inhabitants. In some ways, it invokes other significant street-life films from the era(Variety, Angel, Smithereens) but the genre elements are even further abstracted in Neige and it's less focused on a single character. It does bear some connective tissue with Luc Besson's Subway in its presentation of an environment and the characters that populate it (as well as a shared  interest in music). Much like Besson's film, Berto and Roger show you people and places but offer very little in the way of context or biographical details. You learn about the characters through their interactions and reactions in present time. Unlike Subway's hyper-stylization, Neige has an immediate, almost documentary feel to it. This inherent vitality relies heavily on the stunning photography from veteran cinematographer, William Lubtchansky, who also worked with Godard, Rivette, Agnes Varda, Nadine Trintignant, and others. The filmmaking on display here is highly attuned to the rhythms of Pigalle - lingering in brasseries, hurtling through streets, and moving through crowds everywhere from burlesque performances to creole religious services. While their personal histories go unexplained, the interconnectedness of the characters is obvious. Anita claims to have helped raise Bobby, Jocko freely lends (gives?) money to Willy, Loulou the bartender hired all his musician friends to work at Mr. Chat's club, a writer friend is willing to part with a packet of speed to help Betty, and Anita and Co. don't hesitate to scour the city for drugs when Betty is ailing. In contrast, institutions of authority are viewed with a deep suspicion and pessimism. The narcotics police are agents of brutality looking to bust small time players in the dope trade while failing to examine the root of the issue.

 Neige is currently being offered as part of a set from Fun City Editions along with La Garce/The Bitch which I also reviewed. Ultimately, I think I slightly preferred Neige though I found it more difficult to write coherently about. The Bitch is taking genre conventions and doing something really subversive with them in the text while Neige is a more expressionistic take on noir stylings. To watch it is to become wholly immersed in the sights and sounds of the Pigalle of that era - a carnival of neon, reggae, cigarette smoke, and wounded souls. I couldn't get enough of it and I think it's perfectly matched to Fun City's gritty, urban catalogue. Many of my favorite first time watches over the last year or two have been French films from around this era and I'd love to see even more StudioCanal and Gaumont properties ported over to US releases of this quality. 

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Pulp Provocation - La Garce/The Bitch (1984)

Christine Pascal's twisty (and at times twisted) detective thriller, The Bitch, leads with its 1940s noir influences on its sleeve. A young woman is abruptly ejected from a car on a rainy night. She's picked up by a taciturn stranger who turns out to be a police detective. The night city is visible in the car windows via rear projection as jazz lilts through the score and they exchange halting information and probing glances. Finally they stop at the canal waterfront, invoking shades of Le Quai des brumes, and the suspense of what will happen next hangs heavy in the air. The nostalgic fantasy is violently torn asunder as the detective suddenly proceeds to rape the girl on the hood of his car. The encounter becomes cryptic as the girl eventually appears to welcome his embrace and the initial violation turns towards the erotic. The girl, Isabelle Huppert as Aline, is revealed to be only 17 and she and her adopted family press rape charges against the detective, Richard Barry as Lucien Sabatier. The prologue concludes with a brief sentencing sequence and Sabatier, disgraced, goes to prison for the next six years.

Pascal, known largely for her work in front of the camera in this country, wrote and directed a handful of films; never shying away from challenging subject matter. In The Bitch, Pascal adopts conventions of American film noir as well as French poetic realism while simultaneously interrogating them and pushing them nearly to the point of breaking. This feels in sharp contrast to the mode of film policier that was so prevalent in French popular culture in the late 70s and early 80s. The tone of the film takes a shift towards modernity following the opening, but The Bitch is still brimming with classic cinema references: private detectives, doppelgängers, double crosses, wayward daughters, family secrets, gangsters, and (most prominently) the femme fatale. While her use of these tropes was derided by critics at the time, it's hard not to see The Bitch presaging the wild narrative structure of the erotic thrillers that would rise in popularity shortly after its release. Rather than retread familiar plot devices, Pascal and her talented cast are able to lean into genre expectations, subvert them, and produce something both more ambiguous and provocative as a result.

Following his imprisonment, Lucien reluctantly takes a job with a detective agency run by former policemen he worked with before he assaulted Aline. While his old friends seem willing to bring him back into the fold, his family has left him and his wife has remarried. The P.I. work consists mostly of adultery cases until a potentially wealthy client representing a fashion designer asks specifically for Sabatier to investigate a rival. Sebatier ventures into the heart of Le Sentier - Paris' textile district at the time and historically a Jewish enclave - where he runs into his friend and former cellmate, Rony. Sebatier explains that he's looking for Édith Weber and Rony attempts to warn him away, explaining that Weber is some kind of untouchable in the Jewish community. Sebatier persists only to discover that Édith Weber is the adopted identity of Aline Kaminker, the girl he raped 6 years ago. This discovery drives Sebatier to uncover the mystery of what happened to Aline while he was imprisoned, the fate of her adopted family, and who set him on Aline's trail in the first place. Sebatier's path causes him to collide with Aline's former boyfriend; and underworld figure, Max Halimi (Vittorio Mezzogiorno); and the three comprise an uneasy and volatile love triangle.

The scaffolding holding The Bitch in place is that of a thriller, filled with intentional nods towards noir, but the execution is firmly in the French arthouse tradition. In American film noir, crime is always punished and desire is nearly always fatal. In classic French permutations of the genre, love and honor are legitimate even for crooks, but doom is pervasive and inescapable. In The Bitch, desire is certainly risky but it's also complicated and mercurial. Crime sometimes has consequences and other times it's a mere detail. There's an investigation that drives the plot forward but the real mystery is whatever's going on behind the inscrutable faces of its characters. The entire cast is able to maintain that mood but Pascal is especially fascinated with Aline. There are multiple close ups lingering on Huppert's face as her expression shifts just enough to reveal profound depths of intelligence, emotion, and enigmatic motivation. Huppert's performance in The Bitch is incredibly strong and of a similar caliber to her roles in The Piano Teacher or Elle. As the premise of the film is so provocative, it's crucial to have such a fascinating character at the heart of it. While I cannot begin to fully comprehend what motivates Aline, I (like Pascal) can't take my eyes off of her. 

Largely unseen and unavailable for decades (in the US, at least), La Garce/The Bitch has been restored and released via Fun City Editions as part of a two film set - Fatal Femmes. Special features include an excellent essay from Alexandra Heller-Nicholas as well as an audio commentary from the always fantastic Samm Deighan. Fatal Femmes includes another French crime flick, Neige, directed by another female actor/director: Juliet Berto. I've been such a fan of FCE's output and French crime cinema will forever be celebrated here, so I couldn't grab a copy fast enough. I recommend you do the same. 

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Not No Place: Time Spent After Hours (1985)

 I wish I could tell you I'm cool. I've been a fan of Martin Scorsese ever since I knew you could be a fan of directors and I wish I could tell you that in addition to the crime epics I watched dozens if not hundreds of times as a teenager I loved the more idiosyncratic entries to Scorsese's filmography just as well. As a young movie fan I focused very squarely on the violent, operatic Scorsese and either failed to appreciate his other work or skipped it altogether. It wasn't until a few years ago that I finally caught up to After Hours and to be brutally honest: it didn't land cleanly for me. I could appreciate the strangeness of Paul Hackett's (Griffin Dunne) nightmare odyssey into the wee hours of Soho, but I think my overall expectations for the film didn't match the reality of it. I thought it would be more immediately hilarious, more madcap, and more propulsive. I also struggled to relate to the protagonist. I didn't much care for the meek yet entitled word processor and I felt somewhat indifferent towards his torment. I empathized more with Robert Plunket's character who after enduring a long and wild-eyed explanation of Paul's horrible night asks him rather succinctly, "Why don't you just go home?"

Still, something about After Hours wedged itself firmly in my imagination where it continued to ferment and I knew it would be something I'd one day revisit. My obsession with cinematic New York City meant that I was continually seeing references to After Hours in books and articles or hearing it mentioned in discussions that interested me. I'm also a tremendous fan of other movies produced by Dunne and Amy Robinson: Joan Micklin Silver's Chilly Scenes of Winter has been a longtime favorite of mine and more recently I caught up to Sydney Lumet's Running on Empty which I adored. I've also been at this movie-watching game long enough to know that a second look (or a third) is sometimes what you need to make sense of a film on its own terms instead of whatever expectations you're bringing to the experience. So when I heard that Criterion was releasing After Hours I committed to snagging a copy and returning to it. I'm so glad I did. 

I'm admittedly a fan of stylists and After Hours was never wanting in that department. It opens with frantic, ranging camera movements conveying a sense of restlessness in probably the most mundane location possible: an office floor packed with corporate drones. Upon my second watch, I couldn't help but note that the opening is one of the few scenes permitted to have sunlight in it. Scorsese was looking to keep his production schedule lean but in no way does that impede the mobility of his camera. After Hours would be the first of several Scorsese collaborations with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus who had a talent for shooting beautiful pictures efficiently - initially forged in Fassbinder's creative maelstrom and having previously lensed the luminous Heartbreakers. The color palette is generally muted; beige, gray, and blue; shrouded in darkness with only the occasional stab of streetlight or neon to penetrate it. Scorsese insisted that (nearly) the entire film, including the interior sequences, be shot at night. Nighttime permeates every frame and that wandering camera gives the impression of peering closer to get a better look. Paul himself is always examining his surroundings and After Hours is crammed with cryptic details that may or may not signify anything: a screaming sculpture, prescription labels, a skull keychain, a medical text, or graffiti of a shark eating a man's penis. The austere Soho location work gives After Hours a foundation of inscrutable alienness (at least as Paul sees it) but the production design and art direction make it visceral. Howard Shore's ethereal, metronomic score perfectly complements the vacant streetscape. I think of Scorsese as a soundtrack guy. He utilizes both classical and pop references with equal facility and to be certain some of that makes its way to After Hours. However, it's all bound together by this exquisitely desolate, haunting pulse from Cronenberg's go-to composer. 

Despite any initial impressions I had towards Griffin Dunne's character, the quality of After Hours' ensemble was undeniable from first viewing. Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Terri Garr, John Heard, Catherine O'Hara, Verna Bloom, Cheech & Chong, even Dick Miller. It's such a fantastic collection of talent that was active at the time and a testament to the interconnectedness of their previous projects. Whether they get an extended sequence like the pop explosion 60s time capsule of Garr's apartment or the brief nod Miller has when he recites the film's title line, you get the sense of a living, breathing late night denizen with a story to tell. I can't deny Dunne's performance and we stay with him in every scene from the muted to the brazen. His increasing level of mania is palpable to point where he cries out into the night asking the question familiar to all desperate people, "What have I done to deserve this?" The women own the film for me, though. They all, in some way, reflect film noir tropes by inviting Paul into situations that eventually turn sour on him. However, this quasi-seduction isn't any kind of reflection on their amorality. They're genuinely interesting people, mostly artists and loners looking for connections, and Paul's undoing is largely through his own desire to be with them without understanding their world. The crux of the narrative is that he traveled somewhere far from home, late at night, because he has a brief conversation with a beautiful girl. Some of the early audience feedback for After Hours was that it expressed a level of misogyny because the women of the film are "all crazy." However, part of the key (this movie is filled with keys and doors) for me to appreciate the film was that it's both being presented from Paul's point of view and that it isn't necessarily an endorsement of that perspective. The women in the film appear crazy to Paul because he misunderstands every situation and person he encounters that night.

 Scorsese claims that Paul's dilemma was something he was able to recognize in his own life. Before working on the film, Marty had moved to Tribeca and while he was a native New Yorker he soon realized that he was not part of the downtown art scene at all. It was an alien world to him. So while I don't think Scorsese is asking the audience to validate Paul's actions, he is asking us to empathize with him. As uncomfortable as it might be, I've lived through many times when I've been the outsider stumbling into a situation without understanding the context. Despite my best efforts I've been the idiot tourist who can't make sense of the local scene and I've certainly experienced the record-scratch anxiety of walking into the wrong bar at the wrong time. In Paul's eyes it's an endless Kafka-esque series of persecutions that he's done nothing to deserve, but it's his failure to cultivate an understanding of his surroundings that's truly hounding him. Once I was able to wrap my head around this, I was much more able to access the humor of After Hours and it is incredibly funny. I came into it thinking it would be funny in a zany "one crazy night" farce mode; a Coen brothers comedy of errors. After Hours eventually does reach that heightened pitch, but so many of the funny moments are delivered flatly with brief pause as both you and Paul try to process the last outlandish statement or event. It's also an incredibly dark picture. The satire bites but it's housed in the structure of a stressed out nightmare with a finale worthy of surrealist horror. The drug use in After Hours is minimal but it still has those tangibly sweaty paranoid coke vibes that Scorsese has always captured so well.

While I have come around on my ability to better understand Paul, find the comedy in his tragedy, and even relate pieces of my own life to his - I haven't totally come to terms with him. He's looking for adventure in the city but he isn't willing to pay his dues - whether that's his subway fare or getting a mohawk at Club Berlin. He relates to women in the film in a similar manner, either as objects of desire or sources of shelter, but he's not attempting to truly understand them. It's this sense of entitlement that rankled me on my first watch and it continues to do so. This has only been made more poignant as the once neglected, industrial Soho that was supposed to have an expressway run through the middle of it has become overrun with Pauls. Not artists looking to carve a space for themselves in the world, but word processors (or their modern day equivalents) looking to have a interesting life simply by virtue of being able to afford to live there. Comedian Nato Green described comparable recent arrivals in San Francisco as people who "want big city amenities but aren't willing to deal with big city problems." Maybe I'm more like Paul than I think when I first watched After Hours looking for a breezy good time.  So while I'm not cool, I'm glad to have made a return to Scorsese's fever dream Soho. I think I'll keep coming back, but I needed to make an effort to get to know the place. 

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Wish You Were There - Tokyo Pop (1988)

 Tonight at the venerable Trylon Cinema, I was able to make it out to a one-off screening of Tokyo Pop (1988) as part of the monthly Sound Unseen screenings. Directed and co-written by Fran Rubel Kuzui (known better in this corner of the world for directing Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Tokyo Pop is the story of a New York rocker, Wendy, who makes off with her bandmate boyfriend's rent money to seek her musical fortune in Japan when it's clear he'll never elevate her star past backup singer. While she flounders at first, Wendy is able to begin to find her footing - especially after meeting Hiro, a young Japanese musician, who is also seeking success while hoping to maintain his personal and artistic integrity along the way. While Tokyo Pop received critical praise upon release it had fallen into relative obscurity and was only recently restored and re-released thanks in part to contributions from Dolly Parton, The Jane Fonda Women Directors' Fund, and Carol Burnett (mother to Carrie Hamilton who played Wendy in the film). 

I suppose the first thing to tackle is the music: there is lots of it and it wasn't always to my taste. Diamond Yukai (who plays Hiro) and Carrie Hamilton perform all of their songs themselves and while both are very capable singers, that doesn't save the somewhat saccharine covers of American pop and rock songs. However, pop music didn't prevent me from being swept up by the romantic energy of the film and in fairness to the characters - they both yearn to perform their own music and resist their newfound success as "not rock n' roll." Both Hamilton and Yukai are incredibly charming, have truly fantastic wardrobes, and I thought their chemistry together worked rather well despite any language barriers. Hamilton gives a standout performance and her physicality - tall with short-cropped peroxide blonde hair - cuts a striking figure against the Tokyo streetscape. Speaking of which, the 99 minute runtime is virtually all spectacular location footage of 80s Japan: arcades, marketplaces, train stations, shrines, love hotels, nightclubs, fishing docks, restaurants, and more are all immaculately captured (Rubel Kuzui was a Tokyo transplant herself and it shows). I have nothing to compare it to, but the restoration looked amazing to my eyes. There's also an element of cultural time-capsule to Tokyo Pop. Though they sadly do not perform - X Japan appears a couple of times in the film. The incident that initially sparks Wendy and Hiro's success takes place behind the scenes at an All Japan Women's wrestling event that features rising stars Bull Nakano and Aja Kong. I also have to make a special note of the appearance of Tetsurô Tamba as agent/record producer Mr. Dota. Though he doesn't have a huge part in the film, his onscreen charisma shines through. Clearly evidence of a massive career starring in everything from historical epics, to pinky violence, to You Only Live Twice (the Trylon will be screening Three Outlaw Samurai which features Tamba early next week). 

Kino Lorber Repertory is handling distribution for this restoration of Tokyo Pop and I would highly recommend catching it theatrically if you can. I am also very hopeful that this will see a physical release and find its way to streaming. While this isn't necessarily the kind of film I usually obsess over, I would be genuinely interested in a physical copy - particularly with some robust special features. I found it to be very sweet and I think it serves as a remarkable cultural document. Maybe I could lure unsuspecting friends to a double feature with the somewhat more lurid Death Ride to Osaka or even Lost in Translation  which also contains and Diamond Yukai appearance. 

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To Know Paris is to Know a Great Deal - Last Known Address/Dernier Domicile Connu (1970)

Police procedurals of one form or another have been part of film and television since their respective inceptions  — but it was during the late 60s and 70s  that they were infused with a real anti-authoritarian streak and a pervasively bleak attitude. This proved to be a big hit with audiences internationally and cops-against-the-system films were churned out all over the world. José Giovanni’s Last Known Address/Dernier Domicile Connu is very much a part of that wave of pessimistic 70s crime stories but it also subverts the form in surprising ways. It features excellent performances from blog favorite Lino Ventura and the delightful Marlène Jobert but the premier star of this particular story is Paris — featured in exhaustive detail throughout. 

The opening of the film introduces Marceau Leonetti — Ventura — a tough cop whose competence and bravery land him a promotion to chief inspector. After a long shift Leonetti has the misfortune of coming across an erratically driving man and his terrified girlfriend. The man is apparently dead drunk and Leonetti places him under arrest. It is revealed that the man is the son of a powerful Parisian lawyer who is able to manipulate the system in such a way that threatens Leonetti’s job. To avoid a department scandal — Leonetti is busted down to desk duty in a sleepy suburb where investigating a case of stolen pigeons is the highlight of his day. An old friend on the force is able to recruit him for a special vice detail and he is partnered with a young auxiliary — Jeanne Dumas played by Jobert. The two orchestrate a series of sting operations at adult cinemas where they use Dumas as bait to ensnare serial harassers. The assignment isn’t glamorous but the two work well together. Leonetti and Dumas are then saddled with finding a missing witness in the murder case of an influential gangster. The other witnesses in the case have met unfortunate ends and this missing witness is the final chance for a damning testimony. No other investigators have been able to find this witness for years and it’s entirely possible that Leonetti and Dumas aren’t meant to either. Dumas thrills at the opportunity to do actual investigative work and what follows is just that. Leonetti and Dumas scour the city and the narrative delves into sometimes tedious minutiae of an investigation. To complicate matters — the gang of the accused murderer is tracing Leonetti and Dumas hoping that they can reach the witness first.

Last Known Address is an interesting chapter in cop films of the decade. It shares the anti-authoritarian bent of its American or Italian contemporaries — the system is clearly dysfunctional and obstructs the pursuit of justice. It also presents a similar picture of pervasive mistrust of societal systems — everywhere Leonetti and Dumas go they are faced with people who casually discuss their dislike of police. Unlike so many other police narratives — Leonetti and Dumas do not overcome systematic corruption or dysfunction by working outside the rules. Instead of becoming violent mavericks they lean into diligent, shoe-leather detective work  — combing through records, interviewing witnesses, and chasing down leads. Their investigation leads them all throughout Paris — apartments, hotels, second hand shops, pharmacists, cafes, schools — while the two develop a mutual respect and friendship. I can understand if some viewers find Dumas’ girlishness and Leonetti’s paternalism a bit cloying but I found them totally charming. This was helped in no small part by the charisma of the actors in these roles. The focus on urban locales, mystery, and the dynamic between the main characters made Last Known Address feel less like Dirty Harry and more like a subdued They Might be Giants. Diehard fans of hard boiled crime cinema may not find enough grit to satisfy them here — but the brief scenes of violence have impact and the ending is surprisingly grim.

There is a definite cynicism to Last Known Address that paints a picture of a society in decline where the competent and the good hearted cannot hold corruption at bay. What further complicates the message put forward is its director — José Giovanni. Giovanni had a criminal background, spent over a decade in prison, and was even placed on death row for a time due to his involvement in a triple homicide. Giovanni was publicly open about this part of his past and he channeled his experiences into a series of successful books and screenplays. Politically Giovanni was complex — arguing for the end of the death penalty and humane prisons while simultaneously defending conservative values and strong law enforcement. The final shot of Last Known Address includes the overlay of a quote from conservative poet Mihai Eminescu — national poet of Romania but also one celebrated by the right wing. Through this lens it’s possible to see Giovanni presenting a Paris and a France degraded beyond the best efforts of the well intentioned. A reactionary portrait met more with melancholy than the ferocity of his international contemporaries. Later in his life it was made public that Giovanni was also a collaborationist and a member of fascist gangs during World War II before he went to prison. Not only was he involved in murder but he was also involved with extorting Jews during the Nazi occupation — it’s a past demonstrating the extremes of cynicism and degradation. How such a person credibly indicts society is hard to rationalize.

Giovanni's biography aside — I think Last Known Address is an interesting text and a genuinely entertaining mystery story. The Parisian photography is magnificent and provides endlessly engaging scenes for fans of the city. Ventura and Jobert are immensely appealing together and the rest of the cast is filled with faces that will be familiar to French crime cinema enthusiasts — Michel Constantine, Paul Crauchet, Philippe Marche, and others. The original soundtrack from François De Roubaix is excellent — jazzy and propulsive with a fairly hard hitting main theme. I’m not certain how Last Known Address was received at the time but it definitely feels underseen now. It’s an easy recommendation to French crime or neo-noir fans and one I was able to see via Kanopy. I could see this being a great release for Kino Lorber and I would certainly like to have a copy in my collection.