The Los Angeles Times (we read it so you don’t have to) is reporting that “The Grey” director, Joe Carnahan, is attached to write and direct a remake of Charles Bronson’s vigilante classic.

As chance would have it, less than 12 hours ago,  I watched a documentary looking back on the “Dirty Harry” films where Carnahan said, and I am paraphrasing, “I’m liberal on a lot of things but very much a law and order right-winger.”

That’s all well and good, but I doubt present-day Hollywood has the maturity to tell this story with the same courage of conviction we saw in director Michael Winner’s 1974 genre-masterpiece. For starters, Paul Kersey’s (The Mighty Charles Bronson) vigilantism is shown to work and is portrayed as a solution to a serious crime problem the ineffectual police and liberal courts can’t solve. For emphasis, there’s a wonderful scene where we see how Kersey’s actions inspire everyday people to finally fight back.

Secondly, the Kersey character (a conscientious objector during the Korean War) is made to see up close and personal the cost of his limousine liberalism and haughty pacifism. Intolerant Hollywood giving a character that kind of arc today is inconceivable. In films like the superb 2007 remake of “The Hills Have Eyes,” we’ve seen it. But if you listen to the director’s DVD commentary, you learn it was by accident.

Finally, this first entry in what would become a fantastic five film franchise isn’t like its sequels. Here, Kersey isn’t exacting revenge on the same punks who blew a hole in his family. He’s simply working through his grief and refusing to be a victim through the awesome act of cleaning up the streets and, in the end, he is not at all repentant for his actions.

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TEN MEMORABLE NON-COMEDIC PERFORMANCES BY COMEDIANS

Jon Stewart? Really?

Pretty spotty list (“Southland Tales?”), but credit is owed for at least grabbing one film pre-1980 film, Jackie Gleason’s truly memorable turn in “The Hustler.”

My votes go to (in no particular order):

1. Jerry Lewis: “King of Comedy.”
2. Andy Griffith: “A Face In the Crowd.”
3. Charlie Chaplin: “Monsieur Verdoux.”
4. Richard Pryor: “Blue Collar.”
5. Red Buttons: “Sayonara.”
6. Mary Tyler Moore: “Ordinary People.”
7. Don Rickles: “Casino.”
8. Peter Sellers “Lolita.”
9. Lucille Ball: “Five Came Back.”
10. Tom Hanks: “Road to Perdition.”
11. Jackie Gleason : Requiem for a Heavyweight.”
12. Robin Williams: “Insomnia.”

There’s always been something missing in any dramatic performance given by Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Bill Murray and Jim Carrey. Steve Carrell is a little better, but all too often they substitute a kind of sad sack, put-upon pathos for actual character and dimension. With the exception of Williams’ terrific turn as a serial killer in “Insomnia,” think about how similar the performances of all these actors are when they go “dramatic.”

Predictable and boring.

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS ACQUIRES US RIGHTS TO ‘ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS’

This sounds fantastic:

The film, which will be helmed by Mark Hartley (Machete Maidens Unleashed, Not Quite Hollywood), follows Israeli-born cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who launched Cannon Films, an indie film studio in 1979 that went on to make over 120 exploitation films, between 1979 and 1989, dubbing itself the “seventh Hollywood major.”

Cannon Films brought Runaway Train (which received an Oscar nomination in 1986), Missing in Action, Death Wish, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Masters of the Universe and American Ninja to the big screen.

“Cannon Films was an enterprise that in many ways defined exploitation cinema of the 1980s,” said Alamo Drafthouse Founder/CEO and Fantastic Fest Founder Tim League, “We are thrilled to share their untold legacy with movie fans around the country.”

Minor correction: Cannon was only responsible for the first three “Death Wish” sequels, not the original, which was a legitimate studio film (Paramount).

There’s no doubt Cannon made a ton of crap, but they also made some genuine grinder classics: 10 to Midnight, Bloodsport, Death Wish 2, 3, & 4 (the second being one of my all-time favorite films), Delta Force 1 and 2, Invasion U.S.A., Cobra, Missing in Action 1 and 2 and the brilliant Runaway Train.

I’ll take any of these over 99% of the hyper-edited, overlong, metrosexual-driven junk Hollywood’s producing today.

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Imagine an era of movie action heroes who actually look as though they could kick your butt. There was such a time, not so long ago, when masculine men strode the Earth and walked directly into trouble firing very big guns at very bad guys without being all conflicted about it afterwards.

A Purple Heart recipient for his service in WWII as an aerial gunner, Charles Bronson was the unlikeliest of movie stars. Born in 1921, his early success as a supporting player in legendary films such as “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape” didn’t occur until he was into his 40s and genuine super-stardom finally hit when he was in his 50s, starting with Michael Winner’s “Death Wish” in 1974.

Most critics dismissed Bronson’s acting as wooden and most of his films “reactionary” and “ultra-violent,” but he remained a bankable star in low-budget genre films until he was well past the age of 70. And when he did star in the kind of films critics approve of, such as Sean Penn’s “The Indian Runner” in 1991, they would suddenly find him praise-worthy. (more…)

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…)

6:45am PST – Big Heat, The (1953) – A police detective whose wife was killed by the mob teams with a scarred gangster’s moll to bring down a powerful gangster. Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby Dir: Fritz Lang BW-90 mins, TV-14

There’s nothing quite like a Glenn Ford slow burn. Watching Ford’s nice guy characters take it and take it some more until they give it back with compound interest is one of the delights of Ford’s under-appreciated work. My favorite of these is “The Violent Men,” a 1955 Western that pits mild-mannered, square-shouldered Ford against land grabbers Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck.  It’s “Death Wish” on a horse. (more…)

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.

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