In Living Colour

This  last month at the Gutter, we’ve been mixing things up, with the editors writing outside of their usual domains. This week, instead of romance, Chris Szego will talk about movies or comics. Hey, wait! How about movies AND comics? Or rather, comic book movies?

Recently, the theatre’s been a good place for comics. Not just because amazing special effects are possible and seamless, but because there’s something else at work: studios are beginning to value the kind of stories comics tell. Okay, it’s probably more accurate to say that studios value the immense returns on good comic book movies, but still. Working together, writers and actors are seriously raising the bar when it comes to bringing comics to screen. Which is a good thing (Anyone out there besides me ever see Captain America? If you said no, count yourself lucky).

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Tags: 2000s , Batman , Bryan Singer , Christopher Nolan , comics , Deborah Kaplan , Harry Elfont , Heath Ledger , Hugh Jackman , Iron Man , Jon Favreau , Josie and the Pussycats , movies , music , Robert Downey Jr. , superheroes , Superman , Tony Stark , X-Men

Asian Western Round Up

This month we’re mixing it up at the Gutter with each editor writing about something outside their usual domain. This week Carol Borden writes about movies. She can normally be found here.

The world is clamoring for more Asian Westerns. Or at least I am.  I’m talking Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Korean Westerns.

They seem like the best ones around. So saddle up and let’s ride.

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Tags: 1900s , 1910s , 1930s , 2000s , action , Anthony Wong Chau-Sang , Chalerm Wongpim , Chartchai Ngamsan , China , Dan Chupong , festivals and conventions , Francis Ng , guns , Hideaki Ito , Hong Kong , Japan , Johnnie To , Jung Woo-Sung , Kaori Momoi , Kim Jee-Woon , Koichi Sato , Lam Suet , Manchuria , Masanobu Ando , Midnight Madness , movies , Muay Thai , Nick Cheung , Panna Rittikrai , paranormality , Quentin Tarantino , Sergio Leone , Shakespeare , Simon Yam Tat-Wah , Song Kang-Ho , South Korea , Stella Malucchi , Suppakorn Kitsuwan , swords , Takashi Miike , Thailand , Triads gangsters , Weird Westerns , Westerns , Wisit Sasanantieng , WWII , Yusuke Iseya

NOT BAD

Ext. THE CITY - When you Least expect it

You’re walking. The sidewalk is new, still burning moisture out of the concrete in a slow chemical reaction. You’re aimless. Nothing to do.

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Tags: 1970s , 1980s , 1990s , Cultural Gutter , David Cronenberg , Doris Wishman , exploitation , France , grindhouse , Herschell Gordon Lewis , Martin Scorsese , metafiction , Nazis , Orson Welles , screenwriting , soundtracks , spies , The Littlest Hobo , tv , undead , writing , zombies

VARIETY PAK

It’s been just over a year since I became a partner in the Mayfair Theatre, Ottawa’s oldest operating cinema. We’ve shown a lot of films in that time (we average about 40 a month), and I’ve written the synopsis for almost every one.

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Tags: 1920s , 1970s , 1980s , 1990s , 2000s , Arnold Schwarzenegger , biography , Buster Keaton , California , Canada , cars , Charles Bronson , comedy , Courtney Hunt , Dennis Rodman , Dennis Wilson , documentaries , Elliot Gould , film , France , Henri-Georges Cluozot , Hong Kong , horror , Jackie Chan , James Taylor , Jean-Claude Van Damme , Jenny Agutter , John Landis , language , LGBTQ , Los Angeles , Mayfair Theatre , Melissa Leo , Metal , Mickey Rourke , movies , music , Native Americans , New York , Ontario , Ottawa , prisons , Quebec , Queerness , Raymond Chandler , Rick Baker , Rob Epstein , Robert Altman , shifters , sickness , silents , sports , technology , Tsui Hark , Wachowski Bros. , werewolves , William Friedkin , zombies

HELLO DOCTOR NAME CONTINUE YESTERDAY TOMORROW

I had really hoped that my list of the top 10 films of the decade would be more surprising. Or perhaps I just assumed that I was less predictable. I thought about a lot of other films, some of which you’ll see in my runners-up rundown at the foot of this article, but these are the ones that stuck with me over the past ten years.

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Tags: 2000s , Andrew Dominik , animals , animation , Batman , Brad Pitt , California , CG , Charlie Kaufman , Christian Bale , Christopher Nolan , comedy , David Lynch , documentaries , dystopia , end times , Helen Mirren , historicals , Hollywood , lists , Los Angeles , New York City , Owen Wilson , Paul Thomas Anderson , Peter Morgan , Pixar , space , Stanley Kubrick , superheroes , top 10 , UK , Werner Herzog , Wes Anderson , Westerns

HIS SOUL’S STILL DANCING

In the course of making The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, Werner Herzog seems to have discovered how to save Nicolas Cage: let him drown.

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Tags: 2000s , acting , detectives , Frankenstein , Grizzly Man , hair , Little Dieter Needs to Fly , My Best Fiend , New Orleans , Nicolas Cage , police , procedural , Rescue Dawn , The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans , Val Kilmer , Werner Herzog

MERE SURMISE, SIR.

If the ending of No Country for Old Men left you unsatisfied, the Coen Brothers’ latest film, A Serious Man, will drive you insane. Because, although on the surface it seems like a film about how we tell stories to make sense of life, it reveals itself as a film about how stories can’t make sense of life.

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Tags: Billy Bob Thornton , Canada , Coen Brothers , dybbuk , film , Fyvush Finkel , Heisenberg , L'olam Ha-Ba , Mentaculus , Michael Stuhlbarg , No Country for Old Men , Quantum mechanics , schrodinger , Serious Man , Syd Field , Tony Shaloub , uncertainty

MAURICE SENDAK! I’M WITH YOU IN ROCKLAND

Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is not, thank god, a film about growing up.

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Tags: adaptation , Allen Ginsberg , animals , childhood , children , Dave Eggars , film , Freud , Howl , Mark Ruffalo , Maurice Sendak , monsters , poetry , raccoon , Spike Jonze , Where the Wild Things Are

THE LONG WALK HOME

“Now, if you’re playing the movie on a telephone, you will never in a trillion years experience the film. You’ll think you’ve experienced it. But you’ll be cheated. It’s such a sadness that you think you’ve seen a film on your [adjective deleted] telephone. Get real.”

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Tags: cinema , David Lynch , dvd , Inland Empire , iPhone , ringtones , Sony , time

DO YOU KNOW JACK?

As you might know, if you’ve read my bio here on the Gutter, I’m a partner in Ottawa’s oldest surviving cinema, The Mayfair Theatre.

In August, we showed two films that on the surface have little in common: Robert Altman’s neo-noir The Long Goodbye and Woody Allen’s slapstick political parody Bananas. Obviously, though, they do have something in common, or I wouldn’t be writing this column, would I?

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Tags: comics , Fredric Wertham , illustration , Jack Davis , Mad Magazine , posters , Raymond Chandler , Robert Altman , Seduction of the Innocent , Stanley Kramer

OH, THE MEGA-HUMANITY!

So, Richard Kelly has a new movie coming out. Entitled The Box, it’s based on a Twilight Zone episode written by Richard Matheson, which is in turn based on a short story, also written by Richard Matheson. And I’m pretty sure there’s an entire article in Matheson’s impact on the screen arts, but this isn’t that article.

This is an article about Megazeppelins and the men who crash them. This is an article about Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales.

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Tags: 2000s , auteur , Bai Ling , California , Christopher Lambert , comics , Domino , Donnie Darko , Dwayne Johnson , dystopia , futurism , graphic novels , John Larroquette , Jon Lovitz , Justin Timberlake , karma , Los Angeles , Mandy Moore , Megazeppelin , prequel , Richard Kelly , Richard Matheson , Sarah Michelle Gellar , Sean William Scott , Southland Tales , suburbia , T.S. Eliot , The Box , The Hollow Men , The Rock , Tony Scott , Twilight Zone , urban sprawl , Wallace Shawn

CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

(Forecast calls for mild spoilers.)

Watching Jody Hill’s Observe and Report, you may find yourself experiencing a sensation of disappointment. If you do, that’s a good thing.

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Tags: Abu Ghraib , american dream , comedy , god's lonely man , Jody Hill , King of Comedy , L.A. riots , Robert De Niro , Rodney King , Rupert Pupkin , Scorsese , Seth Rogen , Taxi Driver , Tiananmen Square , Travis Bickle

THE UNDEAD CAMERA OF SAM RAIMI

It’s about slapstick, yes. Splatstick, too, of course. And Bruce Campbell, mos def. But to me, Sam Raimi’s films have really always been about the camera.

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Tags: Batman , bruce campbell , cabinet of dr. caligari , camera , Coen Brothers , Darkman , demons , drag me to hell , dutch angle , Evil Dead , Expressionism , german , hand held camera , horror , paul greengrass , peeping tom , Raising Arizona , Sam Raimi , slapstick , spider-man , the quick and the dead

I Want My Mummy

This month we’re mixing it up at the Gutter, with the editors writing about something outside their usual domain. This week Chris Szego writes about movies. Well, mostly movies.

I’m a total chicken. This means I don’t watch anything that smacks of horror.  In fact, I tend to close my eyes when the music gets even a little bit ominous. It’s not the gore I mind so much (though really, intestines belong on the inside), but the terror. The supposed cathartic release of the horror movie escapes me: I scare really easily, and unfortunately, I stay scared long after the movies ends. Which means I’ve missed any number of important genre movies:The Thing, The Exorcist, most of Alien. So imagine my joy when awkward first date manners had me agreeing to watch The Mummy

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Tags: 1930s , adventure , Ancient World , Arnold Vosloo , Brendan Fraser , Cairo , Egypt , historicals , horror , John Hannah , lists , monsters , mummies , Oded Fehr , Rachel Weisz , romance

Rule One: Entertain Me!

This month we’re mixing it up at the Gutter with each editor writing about something outside their usual domain. This week James Schellenberg writes about tv.

I’m a demanding SOB: I want to be entertained. I want shallow, repetitive, and sheer fun, but I also want a little depth, moments of substance, some flair or style, something that lasts. I want it all, but most basically, I always want that kernel of great storytelling. Easy to demand, difficult to deliver!

That’s why I like Burn Notice. It’s the cheesy, unpretentious show that delivers the goods again and again.

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Tags: Bruce Campbell , Burn Notice , Galactica , Lost , Miami , spies , Stargate SG-1 , tv

SYNECHDOCHE, ARIZONA

In the final episode of St. Elsewhere, something strange happens. Snow begins to fall around St. Eligius Hospital, and we cut to an image of Dr. Donald Westphall’s autistic son Tommy, a minor character in the series up to this point. He sits, staring at a snow globe, inside of which we see a replica of the hospital itself. This provocative final image led to the development of something called the Tommy Westphall Universe hypothesis - the idea that St. Elsewhere took place entirely in Tommy Westphall’s imagination. As characters and situations from St. Elsewhere crossed over with other television series, and characters from those series crossed over to other series, Tommy’s imagination consumed more and more of television - even jumping networks occasionally. By the reckoning of St. Elsewhere creator Tom Fontana, “Someone did the math once… and something like 90 percent of all television took place in Tommy Westphall’s mind. God love him.”

The question is, can something similar explain the career of Nicolas Cage?

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Tags: 1980s , 1990s , 2000s , autism , Charlie Kaufman , Coen Brothers , comedy , disappointment , Dr. Strangelove , dream sequences , dreams , Fu Manchu , Grindhouse , Kubrick , M. Emmet Walsh , metafiction , Nicolas Cage , parody , Raising Arizona , Sam Raimi , satire , Tommy Westphall , tv

John Wayne Can’t Save You

This month we’re mixing it up at the Gutter with each editor writing about something outside their usual domain. This week Carol Borden writes about movies. She can normally be found here.

Blood Red Earth has been on FEARnet for weeks now. A horror movie set in the Old West with a Native American cast? All in Lakota? It’s hard to imagine much more awesome than that. I’d been anticipating and dreading it. Its predecessor, The Burrowers, is harrowing and I wasn’t in a hurry to be a little shaky, a little pale again. So I circled round and round. (Spoilers down below)

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Tags: 1810s , 1870s , animals , Antonia Bird , blood , Blood Red Earth , Burrowers , Cheyenne , Clancy Brown , Crow , George Romero , horror , J.T. Petty , John Wayne , Lakota , monsters , Native Americans , Nineteenth Century , race , racism , Ravenous , The Searchers , Ute , video , Weird Westerns , Westerns , xenophobia

ROUND THE DECAY OF THAT COLOSSAL WRECK

In the run-up to, and wake of, the release of Watchmen, it has become common currency to say that adapting Zach Snyder, et al undertook a massive challenge in adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ complex, sprawling medium- and genre-defining work for the screen.

But I’m going to suggest that they actually undertook an even more massive challenge: adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ complex, sprawling medium- and genre-defining work for the screen - and completely missing its point.

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Tags: adaptation , Alan Moore , Ayn Rand , collaboration , comics , Dave Gibbons , Dawn of the Dead , fascism , Frank Miller , George Romero , nazism , Nietzsche , Nite Owl , Ozymandias , Silk Spectre , Watchmen , Zach Snyder , zombies

IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL A DACHSHUND?

Normally, I think of Ron Howard as the Midas of mediocrity - everything he touches turns to boring. So, what went right with Frost/Nixon?

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Tags: 1970s , Academy Awards , Bob Zelnick , Bush , Checkers , David Frost , DaVinci Code , dogs , Frank Langella , Henry Kissinger , James Reston Jr. , John Birt , Last King of Scotland , Oscars , Peter Morgan , Richard Nixon , Ron Howard , Sam Rockwell , slash fiction , The Other Boleyn Girl , The Queen , Tom Hanks , Watergate , White House

GO!

I recently had a chance to watch the Wachowski siblings’ live-action adaptation of Tatsuo Yoshida’s Speed Racer (aka the much-more-evocative Mach Go Go Go) for a second time. After 135 hallucinatory, candy-coated minutes of Mobius strip racetracks and Mobius strip plot, I was left with one question: is this the future of cinema?

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Tags: anime , cars , chases , Christina Ricci , Duel , Emile Hirsh , Japan , manga , Racer X , road trips , Speed Racer , Tatsuo Yoshida , The Italian Job , The Road Warrior , The Seven Ups , Tokyo Drift , Trixie , Wachowski Bros.

ONE TRILLION AND ONE LEANING TOWERS

1. Overture Island
On December 4, 2008, the future ended. The event that marked its end was the death of a 92-year old man from the not uncommon cause of heart failure. It would not have been an epoch-ending event save for one detail: the man’s name was Forest J Ackerman.

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Tags: A.E. van Vogt , Ackermansion , Amazing Stories , biography , Danny Elfman , Dracula , Ed Wood , Esperanto , Famous Monsters of Filmland , fandom , Forest J. Ackerman , Frankenstein , Gene Simmons , George Herbert Wyman , George Lucas , H.L. Gold , horror , Hugo Gersnback , imagi-movie , Isaac Asimov , Joe Dante , John Landis , L. Ron Hubbard , lesbian , LGBT , monsters , Peter Jackson , pulp , Ray Bradbury , Ray Cummings , Rick Baker , RIP , romance , science fiction , scientifiction , Sevagram , Stephen King , Stephen Spielberg , Tim Burton , undead , vampires

DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT HAS A PHILOSOPHY

In Videodrome, shortly before the arrival of the least sexy waiter in the history of cinema (no link for this, you’ll just have to go rent the movie), Max Renn (James Woods, no hyperlink needed) and Masha (Lynne Gorman, IMDb listing not interesting enough to link to) share the following exchange on the nature of the phantom Videodrome signal Renn is tracking:

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Tags: Bob Newhart , cardigans , Dada , David Cronenberg , David Lynch , George Romero , guns , James Woods , John Woo , manifestos , memes , metafiction , postmodernism , seventh art , Tristan Tzara

A DROWNING MAN

Tomorrow (November 7, if I post this on time), Toronto’s Trash Palace is showing a print of Frank Perry’s The Swimmer. If you’re in the city, do yourself a favour: go see it. If you’re elsewhere (I understand the internets now extend beyond the GTA), do yourself a favour: go rent it.

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Tags: acting , adaptation , burt lancaster , eleanor perry , elwy yost , film , film history , Frank Perry , hello again , john cheever , last summer , mommie dearest , physical acting , razzies , robocop , saturday night at the movies , shelly long , swimmer , sydney pollack , The Gypsy Moths , The Killers , The Sweet Smell of Success , trash palace

HOW WOULD LUBITSCH DO IT?

INT. DRISCOLL’S OFFICE - EVENING

It’s a big office, and dark, which makes it feel even larger, cavernous. The theme from Dr. Who (Delia Derbyshire’s 1963 version) reverberates in the space, buzzing up your spine like a telegraph signal.

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Tags: Billy Wilder , Cormac McCarthy , Delia Derbyshire , Dr. Who , Eames , John Milius , Kafka , lists , Lubitsch , Michael Landon , Orson Welles , Rapid Prototyping , screenwriting , selective laser sintering , Syd Field , Walt Disney , writing , Yakuza

SHAMELESS AND GREEDY PEOPLE OF DISMAL TASTE

Interviewed about the legacy of Canadian tax shelter films in Cinema Canada in 1985, Mordecai Richler said,

“I think they squandered a grand opportunity and it’s largely the fault of producers who were shameless and greedy, people of dismal taste, who were more interested in making deals than films and who made a lot of money for themselves. And so Canadian films do not enjoy a larger reputation anywhere and it’s a pity… a lot of damage has been done.”

Well, Mordecai, I couldn’t disagree more.

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Tags: 1970s , American International Pictures , Black Christmas , C-10 , Canada , Canadian Film Institute , Canuxploitation , capitalism , Christopher Plummer , Death Weekend , Deliverance , Elliot Gould , exploitation , Fast Company , Garth Drabinsky , Hal Holbrook , Ilsa , John Turner , Meatballs , Mordecai Richler , Peckinpah , Rituals , Russian Roulette , Strange Shadows in an Empty Room , Straw Dogs , tax-shelter , The Pyx , The Silent Partner , Tigress of Siberia , Tom McSorley , Wyndham Wise

HAVING YOUR DUALITY AND EATING IT, TOO

Spoiler warning.

When the question arises of who could be the villain in a third Batman movie, I’m stymied. I can’t picture The Penguin or The Riddler or Catwoman working in the world Christopher Nolan has created. Poison Ivy? I don’t think so. The Mad Hatter? Clayface? Kite Man? Bane? Nope, nope, nope and please god no.

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Tags: Aaron Eckhart , Batman , Bruce Wayne , Christian Bale , Christopher Nolan , comics , Dark Knight , Gotham , Heath Ledger , Joker , Joshua Harto , Maggie Gyllenhaal , Michael Caine , Mightygodking , Morgan Freeman , superheroes , Tiny Lister

MAN-BAT NINJAS, NINJA BATMEN AND ART WITH NO CONTENT

At the risk of tearing up Carol’s yard (a risk I’ll take, since she’s parked on my lawn currently, leaving me nowhere to pull up). I’m going to talk about comics for bit here. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the screen part soon enough.

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Tags: 1960s , 1980s , 1990s , Adam West , adaptation , art , assassins , Batman , Batman Begins , Christian Bale , Christopher Nolan , comics , fear , Grant Morrison , Joel Schumacher , Kirk Langstrom , League of Assassins , Man-bat , ninjas , Roy Lichtenstein , sound effects , Steve Ditko , superheroes , Tim Burton

THE SHOCK OF THE STIFF

After breaking my own vow never to do a list article last month, I felt like I should come back with something a little more rigorous to make up. So here it is: a postmodern examination of the zombie, and a chance for me to use up all my five-dollar words. And yes, I will be quoting Baudrillard.

You’ve been warned.

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Tags: Arthur Kroker , George Romero , horror , Jean Baudrillard , Night of the Living Dead , postmodernism , survival horror , Zach Snyder , zombies

100 + 100 + 100 = 850

When I first took the screen beat at The Cultural Gutter, I vowed never to do a list article. But promises, like Corningware, are made to be broken.

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Tags: 1970s , action , AD&D , animals , animation , Charleton Heston , Chuck Jones , Citizen Kane , Corningware , Cultural Gutter , dice , disaster , Disney , Duck Soup , duels , firefighters , Gary Gygax , Germany , Grand Hotel , Greta Garbo , guns , Irwin Allen , Jimmy Stewart , Joan Crawford , John Barrymore , John Ford , John Wayne , Jungle Book , Keeanu Reeves , Lee Marvin , lists , London , London Times , Marx Bros. , metafiction , military , music , Orson Welles , Riki-Tiki-Tavi , romance , Rudyard Kipling , satire , SCTV , soundtracks , Technicolor , The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp , The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance , The Towering Inferno , thieves , UK , versus , Wallace Beery , Westerns

A SHOUT GLUED TO A WALL

At one point in the essay that introduces ¡Mas! Cine Mexicano, Sensational Mexican Movie Posters 1957-1990, author Rogelio Agrasánchez, Jr. quotes philosopher and art critic Eugenio d’Ors, who called movie posters “a shout glued to a wall.”

As someone who works in advertising, it’s an appealing metaphor. As a film fan, even more so. And after reading ¡Mas! Cine Mexicano, a handsome new coffee table book released here in Canada by Raincoast Books, I’m convinced it’s also pretty accurate - at least when it comes to Mexican cinema.

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Tags: art , Blue Demon , book review , Cantinflas , lucha libre , Mexican cinema , Mexico , mojado , posters , Raincoast , Santo

SHOPPING FOR PANTS WITH MARTIN KOVE

There’s a pair of pants in the bottom drawer of my dresser. They don’t fit me. In fact, they’re kind of ugly. They’re chocolate brown with thick vertical half-hound’s-tooth white stripes, a trio of faux-bone oblong buttons (non-functional) running up the side of each pocket and belt loops wide enough to accommodate a belt half a cow wide.

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Tags: autobiography , Cagney and Lacey , capitalism , fame , fandom , film industry , film making , Gary Jones , George P. Cosmatos , Guadalajara , indie , J. Lee Thompson , John G. Alvidson , Jonathan Kaplan , karate , Martin Kove , metafiction , Mexico , pants , Paul Bartel , Rambo , Robert Boris , Sam Peckinpah , The Karate Kid , Wes Craven

REPLICANT LIKE ME

The idea for this article occurred to me a few seconds into “Life is a Gamble,” track 10 on Marvin Gaye’s score for Ivan Dixon’s Trouble Man. The churning sax and bubbles of Moog rolled over me, and suddenly I was in Los Angeles, circa 2019. I pulled my Blade Runner soundtrack off the shelf and skipped to track five, “Love Theme”. I wasn’t imagining it. Dick Morrisey’s sax was replicating (Replicant-ing?) the opening of “Life is a Gamble” nearly note for note.

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Tags: Bladerunner , blaxploitation , Brion James , California , Daryl Hannah , Dick Morrisey , Harrison Ford , Ivan Dixon , John Shaft , Marvin Gaye , music , noir , Philip K. Dick , replicants , Ridley Scott , Rutgar Hauer , Sean Young , soundtracks , William S. Burroughs