By Matt Singer
February 19, 2003
Selecting the winners of The GBU Haiku contest was not easy. I selected three prize winners, and decided to share five more very worthy runners-up. We should have another contest in a month or two, with even cooler DVD prizes, so keep checking in for that.
Here, in no particular order, are the five runners-up:
From ShawnB
The Matrix saved him
Keanu, you got lucky
Poor Alex Winter!
From Lobsterman
I just paid ten bucks
Why must I watch commercials
before the movie?
From Deana
“2001 of Movie Best”
Backwards runs then and
End the at begins shrewdly
Memento Nolan’s
From Scott
The state of films now
With ones like Kangaroo Jack
Not ugly just crap
From PatTheGoon
Oh king Bruce Campbell!
Fight the Army of Darkness.
Fight them with science.
Excellent haikus all. But there were three better, in my opinion. In third place, a fine ode to Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi movies about Mars:
From MonkeyBlood
You blew my cover!
Man, I’ve got five kids to feed
Get your ass to Mars
In second place, the best review of Adaptation I’ve read, in just seventeen syllables:
From Tim Callahan
Adaptation: The
film that can't be criticized
because “that’s the point.”
Man, that’s good. And in first place, a haiku that’s clever, funny, and practical:
from agrewe
“The following hauki is intended as a warning for those browsing the straight-to-video rentals at the local Blockbuster”:
If Eric Roberts
stars in the movie, shouldn’t
that tell you something?
And there you have it. A fine contest, I would say. Congrats to the winners, and thanks again everyone for entering and for reading my column. As always, everyone’s welcome to come over to The Movie Board to yell at me for not picking them.
Oh yeah...I have a column:
THE GOOD
THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)
Starring Gene Hackman, Roy Schieder
Directed by William Friedkin
Rated R, 108 minutes
Available on VHS/DVD
Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is good at his job because he is a bad cop. He rarely goes home, he trusts hunches instead of evidence, and he tails suspects so aggressively that he frequently blows his cover. He’s such a bad cop he even gets one of those utterly cliched scenes where he almost comes to blows with his commanding officer then gets thrown off the case - an order he promptly ignores. The only thing missing is someone asking for his gun and badge and shouting “You’re a loose cannon Doyle!”
THE FRENCH CONNECTION is the story of Doyle chasing a single case, a big heroin deal involving some two-bits from Brooklyn and a whole fleet of ambitious Frechmen. There’s no reason given why Doyle cares so much about this case; the French didn’t kill his wife and child, the guys from Brooklyn don’t mail Doyle cryptic letters in the mail, and Doyle isn’t a week away from retirement. He just happens to walk in a bar and spot Sal (Tony Lo Bianco) spreading a little too much dough around.
We never learn what the hell drives Doyle to catch Sal and his associates. Sure he’s a cop, but Doyle has no evidence, and is told several times NOT to pursue the case, and yet he continues. Is he jealous of his wealth? Does he have something against guys named Sal?
Even though Popeye Doyle has a partner (a pre-JAWS Roy Scheider) and plenty of enemies, THE FRENCH CONNECTION is basically The Gene Hackman show,
and while casual fans are accustomed to Hackman’s fiery acting style, you might be surprised how physical his role is. I knew the man could act, but who knew he could dive over fences and railings, footchase perps, and outrun an elevated train! If you doubt Gene Hackman’s badassisity, a word I just invented but which seems appropriate, just watch this movie (He even did his own stunt driving in the famous chase sequence).
The New York City of THE FRENCH CONNECTION is a dirty, scary place. It’s a world of ripped up cars, broken drug vials on the ground, of bitter cold, and smoke wisping through gray skies. It bears little resemblance to the New York we see in modern movies; that’s why it’s such a fascinatingly creepy place to visit - though I wouldn’t want to live there. There’s an aura of danger right from the opening scenes in Marseilles, where a man is suddenly shot and killed at his front door, and if that wasn’t enough, gets his baguette swiped to boot!
Some scenes have two or even three angles of suspense. Doyle doesn’t just chase the sniper who just tried to kill him - he follows the sniper’s getaway train in a car and he’s a twitch away from crashing into any number of drivers or women with baby carriages. Meanwhile, the sniper takes the conductor hostage, and a bunch of men are heading to confront him. The scene has so much suspense, it doesn’t even need a musical score; instead, the soundtrack is comprised of real chase sounds: roaring engines, screeching tires, gunshots, and screams. It’s remembered as one of the very best chases in film history for a reason.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION is severely removed from what we typically associate with cop dramas. There are no tacked-on romances, no lengthy fistfights in the rain while fellow cops watch. There are lots of chases, but there’s also a lot of sitting around waiting. Director William Friedkin followed up FRENCH CONNECTION, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, with THE EXORCIST, one of the best one-two movie combinations in history. His career since has been largely unremarkable; this spring he’s directing the Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro FIRST BLOOD-reminiscent THE HUNTED. Given his highs and obvious talents, it’s surprising he hasn’t been more successful. He was successful in the early 1970s because he did not conform to his profession’s established rules; FRENCH CONNECTION has the grittiness and graphic violence and of a B movie, with the performances and complexity of a prestige picture. Like Popeye he is so good as his job because he does not do things the way they are supposed to be done. I like to look on the bright side; if most things come in threes, then we’ve got one more great movie to look forward to by William Friedkin.
IF YOU LIKE THE FRENCH CONNECTION, CHECK OUT: THE CONVERSATION (1974), another great Gene Hackman performance, as surveillance expert Harry Caul. THE CONVERSATION has a bit of a cult film status; it’s an unquestioned classic, but it’s been overshadowed by a little film director Francis Ford Coppola made the same year, THE GODFATHER PART II.
THE BAD
WILD GUITAR (1961)
Starring Arch Hall Jr., William Watters
Directed by Ray Dennis Steckler
Unrated, 92 minutes
Availabe on VHS & DVD
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My parents are great people, but they are not as giving as Arch Hall Sr. While I could not convince my parents to buy me a car when I got my driver’s license, Arch Hall Junior’s dad gave him an acting career. His father, Arch Hall Sr. (A.K.A. William Watters), a minor figure in film history, wrote and/or directed a series of films that his son starred in. Most feature Arch Jr. scoring girls, fighting guys he wouldn’t stand a chance against in real life, and singing songs that he wrote himself. I had already seen their most infamous creation, EEGAH, and promised not to subject myself to such headache-inducing torture again. Yet, somehow, I recently submitted to the misery of their follow-up, WILD GUITAR. I should have stuck to my guns and just said no.
Arch’s character is named Bud Eagle, and he moseys into town with a guitar, a suitcase full of clothes, a napsack full of dreams, and a pile of the worst rock songs you’ve ever heard. Bud doesn’t have the fifteen cents for the coffee and donut he orders at the first diner he finds, but he’s got a really pathetic face and a ‘do as high as an elephant’s eye, so a fetching girl named Vicki (Carolyn Brandt) takes pity and let’s him tag along when she goes perform on television. When the next act on the show refuses to appear in WILD GUITAR, Arch gets his big break, and the very first American Idol catches the eye of manager Mike McCauley (Hall Sr.), who then spends the movie molding the doughy young man’s performances and songwriting, while stealing all his money and threatening to kill him. All we’re missing is a drug overdose and a hooker fetish and we’d be primed for Bud Eagle: Behind The Music.
Bud’s songs are whiny ballads of longing, set to tempos that would have snails screaming “Seriously, pick up the pace Archie!” Centerpiece “Vicki” was also featured in EEGAH with equally aggravating results, but at least this time he’s singing the song to a girl named Vicki (Roxy from EEGAH was too stupid to realize her boyfriend was professing his love to a girl other than her). The songs are really depressing - even the uptempo songs feel slow - though making new lyrics to Bud’s songs is one of the few ways to enjoyably pass the time as WILD GUITAR rolls. My alternate soundtrack included tracks like “How Much Longer?” “Off Key” and, of course, “Here Comes My Dinner (Again)!”
Eventually, Bud gets in so deep with McCauley that he has to kidnap himself (since he has no actual fans or friends willing to help him) and blackmail McCauley to recover his lost money. Showing the business sense of a man who signs any piece of paper put in front of his face, he decides not to fire the crooked businessman who stole all his money, tried to bribed him with booze and sex, and threatened his life. He let’s him keep his job, as long as he promises to do a good job from now on. It’s great to see father and son playing these parts and working out their issues in scenes where they try to murder each other and steal lots of money.
The only thing commendable about WILD GUITAR is the excellent DVD edition available from cult movie masters Something Weird Video, which features a transfer of the film far better than it deserves, yet another Arch Hall-Arch Hall production, THE CHOPPERS, and plenty of trailers and shorts. The extras nearly make up for the fact that WILD GUITAR is a musical with bad music and unlikable characters. Hell, it’s not even wild. Arch Hall Sr. should have given his son a Mustang from Ford, not Fender. So much of this pain could have been averted.
INSTEAD OF WILD GUITAR, CHECK OUT: EEGAH, on “Mystery Science Theater 3000”: Revenge is a dish best served by Joel Robinson and his two robot pals, watching this awful Arch Hall Jr. movie about a gas station attendant and his girlfriend who discover a caveman living in the desert.
THE UGLY
FRIDAY THE 13th PART VIII - JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989)
Starring Kane Hodder, Jensen Daggett
Directed by Rob Hedden
Rated R, 100 minutes
Available on VHS & DVD
Eight films into the series, four after “The Final Chapter,” Jason Voorhees, a lumbering-yet- unstoppable killer, makes his way to Manhattan with hilarious results. An oustandingly stupid entry in cinema’s most enduringly bad series, FRIDAY THE 13th PART VIII - JASON TAKES MANHATTAN shows that despite numerous spoofs on the genre, nothing is funnier than the real thing. It is redundant to mock a movie that ends with a toxic waste sewer flood killing a smoosh-faced creature crying in the voice of a six-year-old boy. If Jason was ever scary, those golden days of yore are long gone. Now he deserves praise as the comedic genius he is, right up there with greats like Jerry Lewis, Mike Myers, Woody Allen, and Michael Myers.
In PART VIII - the word “part” suggesting that even this most absurd of sequels was imagined as one piece of a grand scheme set into motion a decade earlier - Jason is revived by a couple of fornicating teens, who make the mistake of yachting on Crystal Lake, throwing over an anchor, and having sex while the anchor slides into a wire that is at the bottom of the lake (who puts wires in a lake?). Juiced up and extremely soggy, Jason returns the favor by impaling them both. That Jason, what a sourpuss, no mercy even for the dopes who reanimated him. If Jason was a movie monster of the old school, he would have spent at least one movie in these jokers’ service before he realized how lame they were and brought down some large building on all of them. These newbies, no respect for the past.
Though Jason’s early quests for blood usually involve some sort of revenge for the death of his mother, who herself was seeking vengeance for Jason’s death (after ten movies, these things get complicated) in PART VIII, things are played a little loose and Jason just looks to kill the nearest warm bodies; in this case a pleasure cruise filled with recent high school graduates. Jason has a particular kinship with Rennie (Jensen Daggett), who has visions of Jason as he was before he donned his trademark hockey mask, drowning, crying for help, with one weird mutant eye. Clearly in denial, and trying to forget his past, Jason figures the healthiest therapy in this case would be to simply kill Rennie and everyone she’s every come into contact with. Rennie’s pals oblige by screaming a lot, freezing when they see him, and leaving things like spear guns and hatchets laying about.
Eventually, the creators have to make good on the title, and a few survivors flee the ship (which has luckily hit some nasty weather, making the sinking of the boat easier to swallow), and somehow wind up rowing all the way to Manhattan (It’s bizarre that the LAKE they were in fed directly into the Atlantic Ocean, but I suppose that’s nitpicking). In Manhattan, they get mugged, drugged, raped, beaten, all before Jason shows up. Boy, when things go bad! Writer and Director Rob Hedden seems to be using the film as a way to work out some deep-seeded aggression against the Big Apple; perhaps as a child he had some bad experiences in New York, possibly involving drowning and sinking yachts and spear guns that silly teenagers left on their dressers.
Jason Voorhees died for the first time in 1957, placing his age somewhere in his 60s. Given that he’s been killed about a dozen times, and spends most of his time buried beneath rubble, only to reawaken for a week-long killing spree every year or two, it makes sense that Jason’s appearance would not be up to supermodel standards. But instead of looking creepy or at least mildly upsetting, he just looks weird and pathetic, like a Cabbage Patch Doll left out in the sun too long and then put in a microwave. This is the face of evil? He looks more like the face of unimaginative designers.
Even though he is given an acid wash and plenty of humiliation (Trust me, it’s impossible NOT to laugh at Jason’s Silly-Putty-gone-bad face) Jason returned for two more sequels. First he went to the only place apparently deemed worse than Manhattan, Hell itself, and then beyond hell into space where he turned into an “Uber-Jason” (their term, not mine). Next, he’ll fight Freddy from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and, no joke, Kelly from DESTINY’S CHILD in FREDDY VS. JASON. Who do you think’s going to win that one? Don’t forget, she’s a survivor.
IF YOU LIKED FRIDAY THE 13th PART VIII - JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, CHECK OUT: KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS (1977): Horror movies as unintentional comedies don’t come any funnier than this one, with William Shatner fighting crazed spiders.
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