Lee Marvin: That Glorious Bastard

Only a tiresome poseur like Quentin Tarantino could think that the Hollywood pretty boys he cast in his soon-to-be released opus The Inglorious Basterds are convincing movie tough guys. Where is Lee Marvin when we need him?

You’ve probably experienced the Basterds publicity blitz.  Brad Pitt looks like he stepped out of a Calvin Klein underwear ad. Folks I know who have been around him say he really is a pleasant and laid-back guy, and these are hardly the characteristics of a beady-eyed killer.  Creepy Eli Roth, taking some time off from directing his degenerate torture movies, is just a leering clown – he looks like he should be squatting in the back of his Ford panel van offering Tootsie Rolls to passing tweens.  And B.J. Novak?  The guy is a hilarious writer and is really funny in The Office , but I’m not buying this cat as the scourge of the Third Reich.

In contrast, Lee Marvin’s tough guy legacy lives on despite the fact that his body rests with thousands of other heroes in Arlington National Cemetery. He earned that right when he was wounded fighting the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific as a Marine private. His Purple Heart is 100% USDA certified proof positive of his prime badassary. Who is the Hollywood tough guy of today who can dare step up to the Lee Marvin plate and take a swing?

Nobody. (more…)

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Tags: academy award, Arlington National Cemetery, B.J. Novak, brad pitt, Cat Ballou
Posted Aug 4th 2009 at 6:55 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Film | 197178154 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/08/04/lee-marvin-that-glorious-bastard/Lee+Marvin%3A+That+Glorious+Bastard2009-08-04+13%3A55%3A35Kurt+Schlichter

Cultural Kleptos: How the Left Hijacks Art (and Everything Else) for the Good of Mankind

Kids love movies about people who tell lies – because they’re such naughty, little fibbers themselves.  During my formative years, it seemed like the same two films were on TV everyday when I came home from school – to remind me of the dangers of mendacity.  Perhaps it was a portent of things to come.

William Wyler’s “The Children’s Hour” (1961)

One was Weird Woman (1944), a neglected camp classic that was part of Universal’s low-budget Inner Sanctum series - about a scorned librarian (scream queen Evelyn Ankers) who seeks revenge on her ex- (Lon Chaney Jr.) by spreading gossip about his new wife (Anne Gwynne), an all-American voodoo princess he met on a South Seas expedition (don’t ask).

After several people inadvertently die as a result of Ankers’s aspersions, Chaney and gang steal a move straight out of the Democratic playbook - they devise an elaborate, fear-mongering ruse to guilt her into submission (and make her confess).  Here’s a clip of Ankers being browbeaten – with prophecies of gloom and doom – by little-known B-actress Elizabeth Russell: (more…)

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Tags: Anne Gwynne, audrey hepburn, Cairo, Charles Bronson, Dashell Hammett
Posted Jul 30th 2009 at 5:03 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 18642669 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/07/30/cultural-kleptos-how-the-left-hijacks-art-and-everything-else-for-the-good-of-mankind/Cultural+Kleptos%3A+How+the+Left+Hijacks+Art+%28and+Everything+Else%29+for+the+Good+of+Mankind2009-07-30+12%3A03%3A16Charles+Winecoff

Top 5: Revengers

A kung-fu flick with fancy wire work is still a kung-fu flick and a revenge flick with CGI is still a revenger . Some may confuse “Wolverine” with a superhero film, but make no mistake, it’s a revenger of the best kind: a B-level plot with A-level action — all meat and potatoes without a vegetable anywhere in sight.

This is one of my favorite genres, especially when it comes to the smaller, lesser known – or better yet – less respected members of this family. Sure, there’s “Star Trek II,” “Once Upon a Time in the West,” “The Sting,” “Man on Fire,” and both “Kill Bill” films – love ‘em all, and so do you, but here are five you may have missed that are even more satisfying than their better known cousins.

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1. Death Wish II (1982) – Michael Winner’s first “Death Wish” (1974) is often mistaken as a revenge film when it’s really a vigilante film. For we purists that distinction matters. The original may show up on all kinds of Top 10 Revenge Film lists but at no time does Bronson’s Paul Kersey look for the thugs who murdered his wife and raped his daughter. What he does do is take it to the streets as an avenging angel to overcome his own sense of helplessness. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great because punks get blown away and liberal critics howl, but a revenger it is not. (more…)

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Tags: "Act of Violence", "Coffy", "Death Wish II", "Hannie Caulder", Burt Kennedy
Posted May 2nd 2009 at 11:58 am in Top 5 | 1249025 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/05/02/top-5-revengers/Top+5%3A+Revengers2009-05-02+18%3A58%3A54John+Nolte

Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” passes the all-important summer movie “Soylent Green Test.”  What do we ask of our cinema gods from May to September? The same thing Edward G. Robinson’s Sol Roth wanted at the end of his life, nothing taxing, nothing challenging – just a pleasant, easy on the eyes diversion from our punishing everyday reality. It’s summer dammit, and the living’s s’posed to be easy. A celluloid fine line must be walked between insuring we’re never bored and not forcing us to think. And so, just like the melodic, faraway *ting* of a baseball hit off an aluminum bat, “Wolverine” hits that summer sweet spot.

Unlike “The Dark Knight,” which used allegory and theme to richen its story and characters, the first two X-Men movies (haven’t seen 3) were unduly burdened by political subtext. At no time did either achieve the most important moment in a superhero film – at no time did they soar. It’s not hard to figure out why. How do you accomplish lift-off weighed down by a blinding nuance which won’t allow an all-out rumble between good and evil? “Wolverine” never soars either, but it’s not a superhero film, it’s a genre flick; a satisfying, old-fashioned revenger, a B-movie whose characters just happen to possess extraordinary powers. (more…)

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Tags: Charles Bronson, hugh jackman, Liev Schreiber, review, Wolverine
Posted May 1st 2009 at 12:01 am in Featured Story, Reviews | 123150One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/05/01/review-x-men-origins-wolverine/Review%3A+X-Men+Origins%3A+Wolverine2009-05-01+07%3A01%3A38John+Nolte

Review: Taken

When the lights dim on one of these action thrillers my question is always the same: Is this “300” or “The Kingdom?” Is this what it promises to be, a rousing, exciting, intelligent crowd pleaser true to its themes to the end like “300,” or is this “The Kingdom,” a hundred minutes of dishonest set up all designed to manipulate an emotional investment from you so that the closing, left wing, Big Hollywood sucker punch puts you on your knees?

I bring you glad tidings. Like a gritty, avenge grinder Charles Bronson might’ve made around, oh, 1973, “Taken” is about as satisfying an action thriller as you’re likely to see all year.

What a sad thing to have to say in January. (more…)

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Tags: action film, Charles Bronson, famke janssen, Liam Neeson, the searchers
Posted Jan 30th 2009 at 5:06 pm in Reviews | 3702249 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/01/30/review-taken/Review%3A+Taken2009-01-31+01%3A06%3A54John+Nolte

Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of ‘Death Wish’

American Movie Classics is marking the 35th anniversary of the release of Death Wish, the controversial and highly influential 1974 film featuring Charles Bronson as a liberal architect in New York City who becomes a vigilante after a group of thugs murder his wife and rape his daughter.

The film was highly successful with audiences, making Bronson a big star and inspiring several sequels. Critics hated it.

Both reactions were caused by the same thing: the film’s uncompromising truthfulness. Death Wish marked the death of liberal illusions about crime and punishment: the idea that crime is caused by disadvantageous social environments and that the solution is to pour even more taxpayer money into bad neighborhoods in an attempt to buy submission from the poorer elements of society.

Death Wish showed that process to be an absurd sham. The film, based on a novel by Brian Garfield, clearly showed that giving in to such political extortion was making social conditions worse and exacerbating the nation’s already terrible crime problem.

Death Wish and its sequels refused to sugarcoat the villainy of the criminals the architect Paul Kersey pursues, nor did it state that he was justified in what he was doing. It simply showed the characters doing what they were inclined to do, making their choices and following the consequences. Such truth was impossible for Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, and other elitist critics of the time to stomach.

As direct and truthful as Death Wish is, it is not simplistic or political, despite the ravings of critics at the time. It is a story that was all too plausible, and the characterizations and situations were accurately and insightfully portrayed.

(more…)

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Tags: Charles Bronson, Death Wish, Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, vigilante
Posted Jan 8th 2009 at 6:14 pm in Entertainment | 1169723 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/stkarnick/2009/01/08/celebrating-the-35th-anniversary-of-death-wish/Celebrating+the+35th+Anniversary+of+%27Death+Wish%272009-01-09+02%3A14%3A25S.T.+Karnick