Keith David

Keith David is pretty well known these days both for his voice and his physical presence in various mainstream genre films. I always find it interesting to note when well respected actors had somewhat sketchy or sleazy early careers. I'm always interested in the "low class" origins of stars. Some like to distance themselves from it the bigger they get, others are proud of it and never really stop slumming no matter what their salary. Keith David is a great example of this because he had some choice supporting roles in some of the classics of 80’s genre film at the start of his career but still tends to do unusual and offbeat pictures. In case you forgot, here's a rundown of David's early career to enjoy all over again.

The Thing

United States - 1982
Director – John Carpenter
The first starring role for David also broke the mold requiring the black sidekick to die in the act of saving/helping the white hero. After The Thing snuck through, that mold was repaired quickly and put back into service. The Thing is one of those films that is just as good each time you watch it provided you give it enough time. In the interim you can enjoy it vicariously with what I consider one of Ennio Morricone’s best soundtracks which you can find at Illogical Contraption.

Platoon
United States – 1986
Director – Oliver Stone
The first appearance of David and Charlie Sheen together made us think for a second that Sheen might not be a total boner, and Oliver Stone might be a genius. Oops. But it also gave us “King”, David’s character who doesn’t like to perform cunnilingus, but enjoys “sniffing some of that cross mounted pussy down by the river,” whatever that means.

They Live
United States - 1988
Director - John Carpenter


I'm not sure I understand the extent to which people have tried to analyze the messages in this film, they seem neither subtle nor obvious to me. In fact I don't think there are any messages except perhaps for one. Its meta-narrative tells us that over analyzing something can deliver a deep and futile satisfaction, and  reveal the total pointlessness of subjective criticism. But hey, that's why we're here.


Road House
United States -1989
Director – Rowdy Herrington
I threw this one in because five is a nice round number and I I'm hoping that the inclusion of the name Swayze will get this page more hits. David plays the bartender who replaces John Doe when the Roadhouse is cleaned up and turned into a soulless nightclub. This is really an 80’s blue-collar version of Fight Club. The scene in which Carrie the waitress (Kathleen Wilhoite) has a spontaneous orgasm at the mere sight of Swayze’s ass is alone worth the spine-tingling price of admission.

Men at Work
United States- 1990
Director – Emilio Esteves
This movie left a mark upon American culture much like a tattoo, blurrier, uglier and more regrettable with each passing day, but nevertheless permanent. It gave us three amazing things: Charlie Sheen with a mullet in full-bore cokehead mode, the end of  Emilio Esteves' respectability, and David’s line “Somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy,” which might be a reference to the first two things.

Swayze.

Ellen Burstyn

While dawdling over an Umberto Lenzi war flick at IMDB last night I noticed in their Born Today section that Pearl Harbor Day is also the birthday of actress Ellen Burstyn, not only a talented but also beautiful actress who's been in a number of great genre films. She strikes me as one of those actresses/actors who you never realize how good they are until you take the time to do a little research and find out that they were crucial to some of your favorite films.



I'm not a particularly big fan of occult or religious horror, but I do like The Exorcist (1973). You'd have to try pretty damn hard not to. Ellen plays Regan's mother Chris with an alarmingly natural mix of hysteria and calm, some of which came from a spinal injury she received on set and which remained in the film. Along with star Linda Blair, Ellen very nearly wasn't in this film at all. The Exorcist may be her best known genre film, but she has another 119 titles to her credit at IMDB.
Also check out the Exorcist Soundtrack at Illogical Contraption.


Just a couple of years earlier Ellen had a supporting role (one of her first outside TV) in the low budget car crashing exploitation flick Pit Stop (1969). This is one of the only racing movies I like, but that's not surprising, it's old and it was directed by Jack Hill, a protege of Roger Corman who basically wrote and/or directed an unending string of classic exploitation films like Spider Baby, Switchblade Sisters and Coffy to name just a few. It also stars exploitation powerhouse Sid Haig who some may know better or more recently as Captain Spaulding.


And finally, this is the movie that put the name to the face of Ellen Burstyn for me, Darren Aronofsky's 2000 masterpiece of drug horror Requiem For A Dream. I think it's safe to say that it changed everyone's perception of just about every actor who was in it, Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans (especially), Jennifer Connely, Keith David etc.... I know I feel more than a little bit soiled after every time I watch it. Ellen Burstyn plays Leto's lonely older mother, a woman hounded by memories of a sad and unfulfilling life. Her portrayal of a diet-pill addict earned her an Oscar nomination (her 6th), but she also won numerous awards for her awesome portrayal of Sarah Goldfarb.
I shudder just thinking about it as I write this, and agree with my own mother's assessment of this film; "They should get rid of the DARE Program and just show this movie to schoolkids."

There ya go, if ya haven't seen 'em do it if for no other reason than to see Ellen at work or to get your gross on. Since I've only seen a couple of her other roles I'll get to work seeing some of those.

C. Winston Taylor

In my recent post about Warriors of the Apocalypse I noted the sheer awesomeness of the box art that accompanied the totally wacky movie therein. The main thing that appealed to me about this cover in particular is its concise encapsulation of the ideology behind men's pulp adventure magazines of the Cold War period. The adventure pulps (and their close siblings the sex pulps) have justifiably garnered their own attention both for sociological and artistic reasons.

On the latter subject it seems to me that the VHS box art, and prior promotional materials from which most of it was derived (in the pre-Straight To Video era) are direct descendants of the pulp tradition. The themes are virtually the same, horror, adversity to evil, sex and machismo, and the coarse appeal to masculinity that is as obvious as the list I just made. Stories popular in trash magazines were easily as popular in trash movies, it just required a new marketing framework. The poster and box art is without a doubt the post-video continuation of exploitation media promotion.
Hence my fascination with VHS/poster art in general, of which C. Winston Taylor's art for Warriors of the Apocalypse is an almost perfect example of the pulp art lineage.
Taylor is a Vietnam Veteran, turned highly talented American artist who did quite a number of film promotional pieces between the 70's and 90's. He seems to be one of the lucky few artists whose signature is regularly preserved on the downsized and cropped VHS box versions of their art.
Upon conducting a little research I found several more of his film illustrations which are included below. A few were credited to Taylor though I wasn't able to see a signature, these are noted. Sorry for the low resolution on some of them, they were all found online and I did what I could.




Guardian of Hell
a.k.a. The Other Hell
Italy - 1980
Director - Bruno Mattei (as Stefan Oblowsky)
image from impawards.com

Evilspeak
United States - 1981
Director - Eric Weston
no signature visible, credited to Taylor at emovieposter.com

Time After Time
United States - 1979
Director - Nicholas Meyer
image from emovieposter.com

Lone Wolf McQuade
United States - 1983
Director - Steve Carver
image from impawards.com

The Swarm
United States - 1978
Director - Irwin Allen
no signature visible, credited to Taylor at impawards.com

The 5th Musketeer
Austria - 1979
Director - Ken Annakin
image found on Ebay

Firepower
United Kingdom - 1979
Director Michael Winner
image from moviegoods.com





More posters and promo art by Taylor:
Mutant Hunt
Robot Holocaust
 
In the early 1990's Taylor was hired to illustrate the covers of the Quantum Leap comic book series based on the TV show of the same name. I don't remember liking the show much and I can't imagine the comics were any better, but Taylor's art is really particularly excellent. See the Quantum Leap images including several pictures of the artist at Al's Place: A Quantum Leap Fan Site. During this period Taylor also did some religious artwork which seems sloppy considering the QL work (his gallery is third from the bottom) but nonetheless showcases his terrific sense of depth.

I'm sure there is much more C.W. Taylor work out there, but these older pulp illustrators from the pre-internet era are hard to track down since they so rarely have websites. Any additional information you might have on Taylor of his artwork are greatly appreciated, send it my way. If more come to light I will post them here.

If you're curious about the pulp adventure and sex magazine illustrations I mentioned above, I recommend starting with It's a Man's World and Sin-A-Rama both excellent books published by Feral House and both chock-full of color illustrations of magazine covers and interior art.

Fangoria 80 - Donald Pleasence

I was really wanting to post something from one of my old Gorezone Magazines instead of another Fango article, but in light of my recent post about the super crappy (but fun) Chuck Vincent film Warrior Queen, I couldn't resist this article. In that writeup I waxed poetic about the uncanny ability of Donald Pleasence to play crackpot characters. Since he's been dead for 14 years I didn't feel so bad about calling the guy a madman, but I thought it would be fair to let him express his opinion on the subject. In a form anyway.




It might also be noted that I recently said I wasn't going to post anything related to horror films for the entire month of October. In this case if you read the article, Pleasence emphasizes his strong dislike for horror films, so I feel vindicated.

Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold

Gotta love the screener box.

Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold

A.K.A. Delta Force 2: The Columbian Connection

United States – 1990

Director – Aaron Norris

Media Home Entertainment, 1983, VHS

Run time – 1 hour, 50 min.

At this point in his career there was a definite 'Nam revenge effect that had colored every one of Norris's films since 1984. I don't think there is a single collection of films in any actor's repertoire that is more bitter, and wallows more in the 'Nam shame than in Chuck Norris. It just might be reactionary movies like these that made Americans feel so ashamed about Vietnam. This movie doesn't even take place in 'Nam but it's so egregious it makes me cringe.

The uncomfortable thing about these films is that none of them seem to realize how stupidly racist they are. Uncomfortably-funny stupid racist. Can you believe how far they’ll go? The important thing to watch in these films, and in this period of Norris films - and I call it a period in the sense that, like Picasso had a "Blue Phase", Norris had a "'Nam Revenge Phase" - is that although they vary little in plot originality, the army of bad guy character actors is remarkable. Among many other equally sinister but less well-known spring the infamous names of Christopher Lee, David Carradine, Richard Lynch, and here in DF2, Billy Drago. Along with other lesser known ones like Sonny Landham in Firewalker and Robert Forster in The Delta Force, this is a veritable Valhalla of B-screen anti-heroes waiting to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting god-fearing, milk-fed, freedom-loving America.

Here, Drago plays Escobar-esque drug czar Ramon Cota, with more money than the whole world, and the ability to be anywhere at any given instant to personally stab to death anyone in the way of his business plan. The US Army, "led" by General Taylor (another veteran character-actor, John P. Ryan) recruits Norris and his goofy buddy to push Cota out of a plane as he flies over US airspace. They do, landing comfortably in a courtroom where Cota walks free and promptly, and personally snuffs the buddy's wife and kids. Consumed by grief, Buddy goes after Cota on his own, and gets caught. Norris, consumed with grief, beats the shit out of a bunch of army guys and calls it (homoerotic) training, much to the hearty amusement of Ryan who stomps around clapping people on the back and grinning like a big dumb cowboy. Now to assault Cota's impenetrable mountain base, surrounded on three sides by impenetrable security forces, and general impenetrability. But a quick thinking Norris knows that most mountains have a fourth side, in this case, a million foot high unclimbable rock cliff that eats babies and worships Satan. No sweat.

Not until after the final important gun battle does Taylor show up, all his earlier zeal for the attack conveniently forgotten so that he can sit his fat rumpled ass down, and drunkenly yell orders to shoot at stuff from his single helicopter full of "Delta Force". Why getting beat up by Norris is considered training I don't know. I wish Norris would "train" General Taylor, damn that guy is a stupid jerk.

Delta Force 2 was followed by a third entry starring Norris's son Mike, and an Italian knockoff called Delta Force Commando starring Fred Williamson.

A nice high resolution poster from Wrong Side of the Art.

And DVD cover art from Shaolin Chamber 36

Laurence Fishburne Is One of My Favorite Actors

I've always respected Laurence Fishburne because he seems to have a lot of natural grace on screen and is quite a good actor. Aside from the Matrix trilogy, he's not well known for leading roles. What is the most striking about Fishburne is the combination of these features, small roles and good acting, for which he seems to get little recognition. However, I can think of very few actors who can consistently "make" a movie, often it's a combination of elements which the actor does very well in. This is how actors often get typecast. Laurence in my thinking has not been typecast, yet remains a good actor who consistently makes each film he is in that much better by his presence. So I've compiled a list of my five favorite Fishburne appearances, some of which you do, and some which you probably don't know, and why I think they're worthy of recognition.

1.) Socrates Fortlow - Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
This one was a surprise to me. I saw it years ago on cable (it is an HBO original) and couldn't forget it. It tells the story of a guy, Fishburne, who has a dark past for which he has payed a social debt (prison) and which he continues to pay a personal debt (guilt), no matter how much he wants to be a better man, he is judged by his past. This captures a frequent dilemma faced by the homeless (though Fishburne's character is not) in which pulling oneself out of destitution is prevented by a social stereotype which one can never escape. Probably Fishburne's best role of all time, this is one case where he definitely does make the film.

2.) "Clean" - Apocalypse Now
Fishburne took this role at the age of 16 or so, and the film as a whole is epic and almost impossible to fully understand without a long course of study in post World War 2 American culture and the Vietnam War specifically. I can't stress enough that although surreal and hyperbolic, Apocalypse Now is very much a subjective American encapsulation of that war. It was co-scripted by Michael Herr whose book Dispatches I can't recommend enough. Fishburne's character is highly memorable because he captures the innocence and insanity of kids fighting a war, and of course dies tragically.

3.) Thug - Death Wish 2
The Death Wish series, at least in its early entries provided a breakthrough for numerous actors who later made a name for themselves (see also Jeff Goldblum and Marina Sirtis), usually in bit parts like Fishburne in Deathwish 2, as merely a thug in one or two scenes but making an impression nonetheless with those bitchin' cyberpunk glasses. Plus it stars my man Charles Bronson and his lady Jill Ireland.

4.) Capitan Miller - Event Horizon
I loved this movie when it came out because I love science fiction and I love gore, and this was strictly creepy and had both. Watching it years later, it's pretty dated, especially the primitive CGI which I remeber being sooooo rad, but which almost hurts now. Anyway, a great starring role for Fishburne in a forward thinking gorror-sci-fi movie that does a good job playing up the idea that man's pursuit of science has broken some fundamental barrier between natural and The Beyond.

5.) Lt. Charlie Stobbs - Red Heat
This is where Fishburne makes a dumb movie with an good plot tolerable, so I guess you could say he makes the movie in a roundabout way. Soviet cop Schwartzenegger, with an Austrian accent and no acting ability, and Chicago cop Belushi with a handful of dick jokes and sexist bigotry are almost intolerable. Fishburne (along with Peter Boyle) save a fairly interesting plot from sinking beneath the dead weight of the leads.

So there you have it. I think Laurence Fishburne is a great actor, one of my favorites and definitely worthy of respect, if you weren't sure, check out these movies, your doubts will vaporize.

New Stuff

With a helpful tip from an anonymous reader I have added two more films to the list of roles for the Ubiquitous Punk Lady

I also found a great Japanese poster for the Bronson film Violent City which I added to my review of that film. It's similar to, but a lot cooler than this nice poster for his film Mr. Majestyk.

I've also added links movie trailers on some of my older reviews, including:
Deathsport
Invasion USA
Starcrash
Rats
All of these are linked to CultTrailers.

I also recently found a copy of the film I Come In Peace starring Dolph Lundgren, a film which I've wanted to see since I first witnessed the trailers as a child. In addition, some new informational films are in the cue for review as soon as I finish midterms, stay tuned.

Barbarian Queen

It’s been over six years as of this writing, but not until this week did I find out that actress Lana Clarkson was murdered. When I heard about her murderers conviction I made a quick internet search and discovered that it was in fact the same Lana Clarkson I thought. Perhaps it’s Lana’s apparent modesty; she was working in a restaurant when she was killed. Or the fact that she was even more attractive at 40 and just looked like a nice person. For some reason I find this whole thing quite depressing.

One of Lana’s first major roles was in 1983’s unforgettable Roger Corman produced Deathstalker, but probably her best known were in Barbarian Queen and Barbarian Queen II (also from Corman). In celebration of her killer’s conviction, I’m posting my older (but slightly re-worked) reviews of the latter two classic barbariansploitation films.


Barbarian Queen
United States/Argentina-1985
Director – Hector Olivera
New Concorde, 2003, DVD

In a happy grass hut village, a bunch of happy forest people are celebrating the wedding of the prince, Argan (B-movie fireplug Frank Zagarino) and Princess Amathea (Lana Clarkson). While the princess’s sister is off gathering flowers, she is kidnapped and the village is raided by leather hat wearing thugs who kill a bunch of them and take the rest prisoner. What they don’t do is take care of Amathea, who struggling to raise her overly heavy visibly dull sword above her head, vows revenge.

She soon discovers several other refugees from the hairspray tribe of Hollywood. They team up, leap in some convenient canoes and paddle to a nearby outpost. There they clumsily knock a bunch of the badguys on the head and rescue Amathea’s sister. From there the journey toward anti-climax continues.
Soon, they run into a group of rebels led by a one-eyed, one-armed purple-clad rebel leader, and a poorly dubbed daughter. (filmed in Argentina with local actors) The rebel gang maintains a hideout underneath the very spray-foam and chickenwire castle village from which the evil leather hat guys oppress their empire. Enforcing a cruel pastel-fabrics only law, the evil king intends to hold the empire in a perpetual state of commercialized Easter. Bucking the advice of the on-site expert villagers, Amathea spontaneously decides to free Argan. She is caught of course, and strapped topless to a torture rack by the nerdy weasely dungeon master. The demographic has been secured sire.


She escapes and rejoins the rebels, now allied with enslaved gladiators led by Argan. Just as they are about to begin their revolt a bunch of the gladiators betray them, but no sweat, Argan and Amathea manage to pull it off anyway, and in a one minute battle, free the entire kingdom by killing all 10 soldiers who garrison the flimsy castle.

Barbarian Queen only serves as a vehicle for Clarkson’s assets, but manages to heap enough low budget ineptitude around that premise to keep it propped up and entertaining. Despite a façade of feminism, knowing Roger Corman, it’s incidental to making a film starring women. But he did make a sequel.

Ubiquitous Punk Lady

If you watch splatter movies from the 80's then you'll recognize this face, or more likely, the haircut. This woman was the ubiquitous punk rocker that gave so many low budget horror and sci-fi films legitimacy.
I don't know who she is, I can't figure it out by looking at the cast list for any of the movies she's in because I can never remember more than one or two at a time.
For all I know, this is a mystery that has long ago been solved by other movie nerds. Not me. Hell she probably has her own website.

The above image was captured from Tim Kincaids Mutant Hunt, a film in which Punk Lady has a mystery role. I have no idea what her purpose in the plot actually is.

Here she is in Street Trash about to set a homeless guy on fire, and later getting booked at the police station.

And making an ass of herself as one of the freaks in a Hitler moustache in Troma's Class of Nuke 'Em High

Anyway, if you know of any other movies she's in, or who the hell she is let me know and send an image please.

The ongoing list of movies featuring Ubiquitous Punk Lady:
Slammer Girls
Mutant Hunt
Street Trash
Class of Nuke 'Em High

Haogies

If you've ever seen a film called Blood Beach, and chances are you have not, you may remember a character named Hoagie (seen getting snuffed in the pic to the left). Pretty stupid name, but in the context of the film it might be fitting, y'know, stoner beach-bum likes to eat sandwiches or whatever so his friends nickname him Hoagie right? Apparently people are actually named that, or anyway it is a familiar shortening of the name Hoagland, which is just a little to close to hog-land among other things for me to take it even remotely serious.
If you are trying to find pictures on Google of our foggy brained friend of said moniker, you will not find them, but instead, pictures of America's favorite Hoagy (spelled differently than I had assumed), Hoagland Carmichael composer of music for films among other things. To his credit is the heartwarming classic "Heart and Soul" which played such an integral part in that effervescent and enucleating Tom Hanks classic Big.
Nevertheless, should you pursue the matter, and I don't recommend it (everything interesting is written here as far as I'm concerned) you will find that Hoagy Carmichael does indeed like sandwiches. Preferably those consisting of canned lunchmeat Treet, raw yellow onions and mustard.
Happy eating.

While I'm on the subject, I'm angry that George Lucas didn't get Tom Hanks to star in one of the the Threequels. That would have been fucking awesome.

Vintage Treet ad from gather.com

Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland

Google Image search for Charles Bronson and you will probably not find these pictures. You have to search his wife Jill Ireland's name and you'll come up with all kinds of interesting pictures of the couple together. That may or may not say a lot about our cultural assignment of gender roles, I tend to lean towards "Says a lot". It should go without saying that I knew neither of these people but I like Bronson movies a lot (understatement) and I find Charles and Jill's relationship interesting because in my mind they seem kindof like opposites, he the quiet reserved type, and her the prissy high maintenance type. I have no idea, I'm just guessing here. I also find it interesting because they worked together on numerous movies during their marriage (which ended with her death in 1990), more than one of which involved scenes of Bronson raping her, or nearly so. On the Blue Underground DVD of Violent City (in which Bronson both almost-rapes and kills her) director Sergio Sollima talks about the oddness of their relationship (I was not paying much attention so I forget what it was but it was similar to my thoughts)
According to IMDB, her first husband David McCallum introduced her to Charles on the set of The Great Escape which starred both men.

Of their working relationship Jill is quoted (on IMDB) as saying:
"I'm in so many Charles Bronson films because no other actress will work with him".

My personal favorite quote of his (also from IMDB):
"I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited."

If even half of it is true there's one hell of a bio on Bronson at IMDB which I recommend checking out.