F.C. Schaefer's Blog, page 4

My review of FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA.

I count myself as a diehard fan of the MAD MAX franchise, I even find merit in THUNDERDOME where others dismiss it, and I was overjoyed when George Miller brought his wonderful dystopian universe back nine years ago in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, a film I consider to be the best action film of the 21st Century. I was genuinely disappointed when it did not win the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director. Back then, Miller promised that there would be more films set in his dystopian Australia after a worldwide collapse of civilization, and now he has delivered, giving us FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA, a film that tells the story of the woman warrior and ally of Max from FURY ROAD, played in that film by Charlize Theron. I’ve always thought the great strength of the MAX franchise is that even though they were centered on a single protagonist, each film could stand alone with a story exclusive to it. The characters Max encountered, both bizarre and horrifying, or pathetic, could be similar, but all three of the Mel Gibson entries and the one with Tom Hardy, built up and expanded on a unique cinematic universe, along with giving us some of the greatest set piece action scenes ever filmed, using practical effects and amazing stunt work.

What I liked about FURIOSA: the absolute stunning way Miller tells a story visually, as his camera is always in motion, whether panning a landscape to find a pertinent detail, jumping right into the middle of a spectacular battle where so much is happening it is nearly impossible to keep track of it all. The amount of detail jammed into a scene as we learn more about a new world filled with scavengers and predators feeding on the bones of the old one. Then there are the incredible action scenes and chases, the signature trope of the MAD MAX franchise, and in this, FURIOSA delivers, starting with a motorcycle chase across the desert with the kidnapped child Furiosa pursued by her mother, through more battles for hijacked big rigs, and ending with Furiosa chasing the Big Bad of this film back through the ravaged countryside again to a finale that echoes, but not copies, Max’s final confrontation with Johnny the Boy in the original film. Love how in each film we get one more novel way to attack a moving vehicle traveling at high speed, this time with para-gliders. Through all of it we can smell the scent of gasoline and overheated engine coolant. And Miller keeps the dialogue to a minimum when it comes to his heroine, so well played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who is virtually mute through whole sections of the film, and does so with her eyes and expressions. Special praise to Alyla Browne, who plays the young Furiosa so very well that I almost didn’t notice when the story switched to the older version of the character. As usual, it is the villains who get the best lines, especially Chris Hemsworth as Dementus, the warlord of an army of marauders, who goes to war against The Citadel from FURY ROAD. Hemsworth is clearly having a high old time playing this bad guy like a malevolent buffoon, and is quite menacing though I do think he’d get the worst of it in a fight between him and Humungus or Auntie Entity. It’s great seeing characters from FURY ROAD return: The People Eater, The Bullet Farmer, the Organic Mechanic, and Rictus Erectus, though Immortan Joe sadly had to be recast due to the passing of Hugh Keays-Byrne. Watching the opening minutes, I feared that FURIOSA would become another film built around a “girl boss,” a flawless female who overcomes all challenges and adversity with ease, but this is not Disney, and Miller has never been shy about being brutal to his heroes, FURIOSA being no exception. Maybe the best thing about this franchise is that it embraces the hard R rating, ladling on the cruelty and violence this dystopia demands, unafraid to be sadistic as in the fate of Furiosa’s mentor, Praetorian Jack. To its credit, MAD MAX does not worship the blandness of PG-13, like some others—talking about you, FAST AND FURIOUS.

Problems with FURIOSA: It’s a prequel, a back story, an origin story, or whatever you want to call it, the main thing is that we’ve been here before. It limits the film in that we know certain characters are going to make it to the end because they’re in FURY ROAD, and this takes a certain amount of tension and suspense out of this installment of a franchise that has thrived on the promise of both. Also, this is the first film in the series to be set over a number of years; in fact, the film is divided into distinct chapters with their own titles. This further erodes the suspense as it deprives FURIOSA of a tight timeline and the sense of impending menace so pronounced in the other films. But the biggest potential problem is that did we really need this story to be told. I don’t think there was a huge audience out there for a solo Furiosa film; FURY ROAD was a box office success, and it has a fanatical fan base online, but it was not a blockbuster when compared to the returns for the MCU films. If I’d had my wish, Miller would have followed up FURY ROAD with a story that reunited Max and Furiosa, and had them take on some new monstrous villain. As it is, there is a brief cameo by Max, and it is implied that he possibly helps out a maimed Furiosa at one point, but that is all we get.

Despite its faults, FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA is a worthy addition to the franchise, and one that will surely improve upon repeat viewings. And in a summer where some other stars from certain other ‘80s and ’90s action franchises are attempting to go to the well one more time even though they are approaching Social Security age, this ‘80s action franchise still crackles with energy and feels like there is still gas in the tank. But if this is George Miller’s, who I consider an heir to Sergio Leone, last visit to this wonderful universe he has created and which has given us so much entertainment, then he walks away with his head held high.

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Crusin' America in 57; a book review

I love a good history book, especially one that takes a look at post-WWII America, so one titled 1957: THE YEAR THAT LAUNCHED THE AMERICAN FUTURE was an easy choice to pick up and read. But this slim volume, written by journalist Eric Burns, is not an objective chronicle of the year, but more of a subjective journey through those months where each chapter is devoted to an event that Burns considers a catalyst for changes unforeseen in the decades ahead, or whose influence on the country and culture were considerable. There is little in the book on the politics of the era, and almost nothing on the international situation, but as I said, this is a very subjective look back. Some of the things Burns touches on are well known, while other figures and events are head scratching obscure, or just plain forgotten in time.

The opening and closing chapters concern the Soviet launching of the Sputnik satellite, which opened the era of space exploration, and was seen at the time as a huge Cold War triumph of the Communist system over the decadent capitalists of America. Burns recounts how the American space program stumbled badly literally trying to get off the ground, but how in the end, NASA quickly surpassed the Commies, and how the space program has paid technological dividends ever sense, making much of our digital age possible. It’s a story told often before, but it deserves to be reiterated if only be reminded of why an investment in the future is always a good bet, especially over short term gain. In the same vein, Burns discusses Eisenhower’s push to build the interstate highway system, which helped unite the country in a way we take for granted now. This dovetails into a discussion of the Ford Motor Company’s failure with the Edsel, a permanent crack in the façade of competence corporate America had enjoyed in the postwar years. The vitriolic hatred and ugliness of Southern Whites in front of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas when a handful of Black students tried to integrate the segregated school system, was the Fort Sumter of the second American Civil War, and though Burns doesn’t explicitly connect the dots, the reader can easily see how this clash has echoed down through the years since. Billy Graham saves souls at his “crusades,” while Ayn Rand publishes ATLAS SHRUGGED, and argued that man didn’t need a soul to save, all he needed was himself and a will to succeed where his inferiors failed. Baseball leaves Brooklyn and moves to California, helping make it a true national sport. A “mad bomber” in New York gives rise to tabloid journalism, and the mass arrest of a gathering of mob bosses at Apalachin in upstate New York, along with the lurid murder of Albert Anatasia, began a long public fascination with organized crime. Burns has some interesting takes on culture: he really doesn’t like Jack Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD, while still acknowledging its impact, and he has some nice things to say about Rand even if he doesn’t agree with her. I’m glad he brings up Nevile Shute’s ON THE BEACH, a book that had a big impact on me when I read it as a teenager. His chapter on the Broadway success of WEST SIDE STORY told me more about why Leonard Bernstein was a big deal than Bradley Cooper’s biopic, MAESTRO. I will defend his chapter on I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, the inclusion of which baffled some other reviewers. The film was essential in the rise of the youth culture, especially in the cheap exploitation of it, and was pivotal in mashing up the horror genre and teenagers, something that has flourished ever since; if we had not gotten Michael Landon in that werewolf makeup, would we have gotten Scooby-Doo? Burns has a familiar take on the influence of rock n’ roll, but again, it is one that bears repeating. And I like it that he gives some attention to Ricky Nelson, and was every bit a rock star in his own right. Even more so was Little Richard, who makes a couple of pertinent appearances in the book.

On the downside, there are a couple of nits I would pick with this book, starting with some noticeable typos, which is becoming more common in professional publishing as budgets are being slashed. And it seems they skimped on an editor as well. There are some embarrassing factual errors: the before mentioned Albert Anatasia and Joe McCarthy did not die on the same day that year, and the film version of THE GUNS OF NAVARONE was not released in 1957, but 1961. The big war movie that year was David Lean’s THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, which is not mentioned at all. Some might question why single out 1957 as such a consequential year, aren’t all years a bridge between the past and the future? Certainly, and a case can be made that 1960 or 1963 were more impactful on history going forward than ’57. But I would argue that 1957 was a year of still waters running deep, where much was happening that didn’t always meet the eye. Those are the kind of discussions that make history interesting, reminding us of who did what when, and why it matters now. Eric Burns’ take on 1957 is a short and easy read, and I think he makes his case well even to those who might beg to differ.

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The Reagan years; Time to party like it's 1986 again.

Having enjoyed Thomas Mallon’s WATERGATE, a piece of historical fiction centering on the 37th President of the United States, I eagerly picked up his FINALE: A HISTORY OF THE REAGAN YEARS to see how he treated the 40th occupant of that office. Again, Mallon mixes fictional characters with real life participants in history, some obscure and some surprising, and centers most of his action around the second half of 1986, a patch of time that included the Reykjavik Summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a hard fought mid-term election with the control of Senate on the line, and the revelation that the Reagan Administration was trading arms for hostages with the Ayatollah in Iran, while secretly funding the Contras, who were waging a guerilla war against the leftist Castro backed government in Nicaragua. Mallon’s book weaves a story that involves many different individuals, some of whom work in the White House, while others vigorously oppose it, and some who just enjoy drifting along in close proximity to power and glamour. Then there are those who observe and see through the facades the mighty and wealthy work so hard to put up.

I thought FINALE didn’t have as strong of narrative as WATERGATE, and maybe that is because the historical events of the latter were so dramatic, and the cast of characters involved so fascinating. But the strong point in FINALE is the way Mallon builds his characters here, both real and fictional, giving them distinctive voices and personalities that may not exactly jibe with the record, but who nevertheless leap off the page for me. Mallon has a great talent for portraying these historical personages not only as they would have liked for us to see them, but then showing us their faults, and allowing the more real person to be seen. The standout in this book for me is his portrayal of Nancy Reagan, the First Lady utterly and obsessively devoted to her “Ronnie,” an insecure woman who uses astrology to try and control a world filled with dangers, seen and unseen, who always believes that the men surrounding her husband in the White House are falling short of doing their best for him, and never forgetting those who hindered her husband’s ambitions, or failed in their efforts on his behalf. Her dependence on astrologer Joan Quigley was kept from the public during the Reagan’s years in the White House, not in the least for how fanatically she believed in it, but also because astrology was anathema to Ronald Reagan’s devoted supporters in the Christian evangelical community, many million strong. Mallon does bring back Richard Nixon in this book, now a disgraced ex-President determined to still wield influence in the waning days of the Cold War, going so far as to have a mole planted in the American delegation to Reykjavik. Pamela Harriman comes off as a sort of anti-Nancy, a woman who knew how to marry well and advance herself, now the widow of Averell Harriman and determined to step out and make herself a power in her own right as a Democratic Party fundraiser. I must admit that I liked the fictional Christopher Hitchens (a friend of Mallon’s) in this book much better than the real life one who went off the deep end after 9/11 and supported the invasion of Iraq, while becoming a militant atheist. Among the other real life personages making appearances in the book are Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, Jeanne Kirkpatrick (a darling of neo-cons back in the day), Merv Griffin, Bette Davis, Donald Regan (the tough as nails White House chief of staff who clashed with Nancy); a napping Lillian Gish, George Schultz, Michael Deaver, John Hinckley (who attempted to assassinate Reagan); Bob Dole, Walter and Lee Annenberg, along with a lot of politicians and names from the ‘80s that many readers will have to wiki. I’m surprised there wasn’t an appearance by Sam Donaldson, the abrasive ABC News White House correspondent during the Reagan years, and a frequent foil for the amiable President. Among the fictional characters Mallon invents for his novel is Anne MacMurray, the former wife of a Republican Party power broker (and a money funneler to the Contras) who has become an anti-nuclear activist, an issue that was red hot back in those days, and Anders Little, a lower level member of the National Security Counsel who manages to hitch a ride to Reykivik, and nearly witnesses what might have been the end of the Cold War on one October afternoon but for Reagan’s refusal to abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative. Little is a closeted homosexual in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, working for an administration doing nothing to stem the disease while being supported by a Republican Party not shy about its hostility to anything and anyone suspected of sexual deviancy. Mallon doesn’t hammer the point, but I think he lets his portrayal of the sad fate of Terry Dolan in the book speak for itself. Ronald Reagan is the one character Mallon does not try to get inside, letting the man remain the enigma so many found him to be, a genial front masking a detachment that mystified even those who worked closely with him. The author strongly hints that the Alzheimer’s, which wouldn’t be diagnosed for some years to come, was already lurking in the shadows and peaking out in the last years in the White House.

Mallon is an exceptionally good writer of prose, and gives his story a flow that is easy for the reader to get into, even if one is not too familiar with the politics and personalities of the 1980s. He deftly opens the book on the last day of the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, setting the stage for what would come later, and then doing a time jump to the middle of Reagan’s second term. One thing Mallon does well that is almost impossible for other authors is to switch the character POV multiple times during a scene. This is called “head hopping,” something all beginning authors are warned against doing, but Mallon pulls it off, though I suspect some readers might be thrown by it.

FINALE was published in 2015 just before the Trump era of American politics commenced, and one thing that struck while reading it was just how stark raving sane everyone sounds in this novel compared to the conversations being had in the White House in real life some three decades and change later. So, if you find the political scene of the present day too depressing and you yearn to party like it’s 1986 again, then pick up this book by all means.

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The Iron Claw earns its tears honestly.

I had only a passing knowledge of the Von Erich family before going to see THE IRON CLAW, knowing that they were stars on the pro-wrestling circuit back in the ‘80s when images of the brothers graced the covers of those wrestling magazines on the racks in drug and grocery stores. Turns out there was a real story behind those photos, one that true fans came to know, and now, thanks to this film, the whole world has a chance to learn. This is a sports movie, but it is not about an underdog doing what it takes to become a champ, it is much more about persevering in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

The four Von Erich brothers were raised in Texas by their father, Fritz, a minor wrestling star of the ‘50s who never achieved the success in the ring he desired, but, like many fathers with failed ambitions, was determined that his boys—Kevin, Kerry, David, and Michael—would succeed where he fell short. He pushed his sons hard to become bigger and stronger, to instill in them a drive to make whatever sacrifice necessary to get to wear that champion’s belt. The story is told through the eyes of Kevin, who witnessed what happened to his brothers, and the unfortunate fates that befell them in pursuit of their father’s dream. As it has been noted, pro-wrestling might have been “fake,” but the injuries were real. The film takes some liberties with the facts, including leaving one son completely out because his story would have been just too much tragedy for the film to handle.

Some might wonder why didn’t any of these sons rebel, or say no when they got big enough, but as the film makes very clear, the Von Erich brothers truly loved each other, and Texas pro-wrestling, which was particularly brawling back in the day, was in their blood. It would have been easy for the film to make Fritz Von Erich into one of those awful Bad Dads that drive the plots in a lot of similar dramas, but, as played by Holt McCallany, Fritz gets his way by being emotionally manipulative, domineering when he has to be, but never raising a hand to his boys despite the violent nature of the way they made their living. Though he makes no secret of who his favorites are, you do feel that Fritz did love all of his children. He was just one of those men who did it his way.

Along with McCallany, this film is so perfectly cast with Harris Dickinson as David, probably the most gifted Von Erich when it came to presenting himself in the ring. Jeremy Allan White is Kerry, who would have competed in the Olympics if not for the American boycott of Moscow in 1980, who falls back into the family business afterward, though it is clear that lost opportunity weighed very heavy on him. Stanley Simons is Mike, the youngest brother, who has an artistic side, and whom we fear for from the minute he is introduced. All of them are good, but the anchor of the film is Zac Efron as Kevin, the older brother who was never quite the star in his father’s eyes, but who became the rock the others leaned on. Bulked up to look like a mini-Hulk, Efron gives a terrific performance, maybe the best work he’s ever done, and refutes those who thought him a pretty boy and a lightweight. Lily James is Pam, the tough Texas girl Kevin married, who became the rock he leaned on, and probably the reason why he was the one brother who ultimately survived what came to be called the “Von Erich curse.” Maura Tierney is Doris, the matriarch of the family, who is asked to endure more than any mother should. But whoever they got to play Ric Flair doesn’t come anywhere near close to capturing the outsized personality of “The Nature Boy.”

Director and screenwriter Sean Durkin clearly has great affection for this material, it has plenty of heart and sympathy. Durkin manages to recreate the ‘80s very well, a time when Americans could go and have a good time without being taken to task for it, back before the raging culture wars and the digital age made the country so divided and judgmental. One of THE IRON CLAW’s real strengths is that it doesn’t have a political agenda; it just has a story to tell, one that many people will find relatable. And it sure earns its tears honestly, especially in that reunion scene late in the film, and Kevin’s moment with his own sons at the end. I would go so far as to say, with all due respect to Daren Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke, that this is the better wrestling film.

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A book as epic as the Civil War it recounts.

After receiving Shelby Foote’s Civil War trilogy as a Christmas present some years back, I read the first volume quickly with all good intention of pushing on to the other volumes, but because of the sheer effort and time it took to read one of them, I drug my feet, and only now have gotten around to tackling the second book, titled THE CIVIL WAR VOL. 2: A NARRATIVE: FREDERICKSBURG TO MERIDIAN. My copy comes in at 966 pages, and Foote’s writing style can be most intimidating as his paragraphs tend to run long, like huge bricks of text that take up most of a page, creating the image of a wall the reader has to overcome. But there is a wealth of detail to be found there, and if the reader makes the commitment, they will be well rewarded.

This second volume covers the events from the Fredericksburg campaign through the year of 1863, ending with Grant going east to take on Lee, while Sherman prepares for the campaign in the west which will take the Union forces to Atlanta and beyond. The two high points of the book are the recounting of the Vicksburg campaign on the Mississippi, and the titanic clash at Gettysburg, but in between and before and after, Foote digresses to some little known or discussed side actions in Texas, Florida, Charleston, Arkansas, Kentucky and the Ohio River valley, East Tennessee, and central Mississippi. He gives these seemingly minor clashes ample attention, and makes the case why they mattered and the effect they had on larger campaigns. The Union blunders at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville are well recounted, along with the Union route at Chickamauga, later redeemed by the Confederate thrashing at Chattanooga. Along the way we get a thorough feeling for the men on both sides, commanders and infantrymen alike, who shouldered the burden of winning the war for their respective sides. Without saying it in so many words, Foote makes the case that the Confederates had the better regimental and divisional commanders in the field, while the Union were often stuck with officers, who, for lack of a better way to put it, simply couldn’t get on the page or grasp an opportunity when it was in front of them. A good example is Meade, who holds a defensive position at Gettysburg and lets Lee’s own mistakes and misjudgments defeat him, and then totally fails to exploit the victory he has won by pursuing his defeated foe on his retreat from Pennsylvania to Virginia. But what the Union did right was to reward commanders who proved themselves on the battlefield, and to quickly dispense with those who failed: Burnside and Hooker were sidelined after defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, while Grant and Sherman take Vicksburg and are promoted; George Thomas holds the line against a Confederate breakthrough at Chickamauga and is rewarded with the command of the Army of the Cumberland, while the Confederates allowed John Pemberton, who lost Vicksburg, and Braxton Bragg, who had to flee his HQ on Missionary Ridge lest he be captured by Thomas’ men in a surprise assault, to stay on even after it was clear they were not up to the task. A lot of Confederates spent a lot of time waiting for Joe Johnston and his army to show up, but Foote explains that Johnston, who recognized the limits of the Confederate military, genuinely cared about the men under his command, and was loathe to spill their blood needlessly. And Foote makes the case that Lee should have listened to James Longstreet more than once at Gettysburg. A lot of space is given to some of the war’s most daring cavalry raids and why the Confederacy had a pair of real assets in John Hunt Morgan and Nathan Bedford Forrest, but not so much in William Quantrill. A strong contrast is made between Lincoln and Davis and their respective Presidencies, with the patience and determination of the former, against the lack of support the latter received from his own people, and the impossible situation he was in of leading a nation dedicated to “states rights” in a war for survival, which required cherished principles to be set aside if victory was to be obtained. It is clear that what truly held the Confederacy together against crushing blows, and in the face of defeat, were the grit and guts of their common soldiers in the field regardless of the quality of who was in command. A recounting by a Union officer of finding the barefoot corpse of a Confederate who appeared to be no more than fifteen years old after a battle in Tennessee drives home the cost, and the wasted potential, of the war.

I am staggered by the amount of research it must have taken to produce this book, but I think Foote gave us one of the finest war narratives ever written. Though it took me just short of two months at reading a little more than an hour a day to finish it, I fully understand now why the events of 1863 were the fulcrum of the Civil War, where Confederate hopes for a military victory slipped away irrevocably, and the path to victory for the Union lay ahead if they were willing to do the hard bloody work to get there. This is a book that explains who was who, and what they did when and where; it is a litany of strategies implemented and battle plans made, and often the failures that occurred when first contact with the enemy was made. That is when the real leaders emerged. Foote’s THE CIVIL WAR VOL. 2: A NARRATIVE: FREDERICKSBURG TO MERIDIAN is the ultimate deep dive into that conflict, and a must read for any serious student of American history.

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BadFellas, my review of the film version of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.

I’d always thought that Martin Scorsese should make a western, a genre that has had a big influence on his own film making, and KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is probably as close as we will ever get to a film in that unique American genre. Based on the non-fiction book by David Grann, which is an account of a murder conspiracy on the Osage reservation in early 1920s Oklahoma, it is easy to see why this story drew Scorsese to it, for it is another tale of greedy and violent men determined to get away with as much as they can, and the law and morality be damned. But it should be said upfront, KILLERS is not a story with the propulsive energy and vicarious bad guy thrills of GOODFELLAS and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, but a somber and brutal look at human nature at its worst, centered on a couple of characters lacking any redeeming charm. What Scorsese does in KILLERS that he didn’t do in those other two films is give space and attention to the victims of his protagonists’ crimes, in this case it the members of the Osage tribe, who were the benefits of sudden and tremendous wealth when oil was discovered on their tribal lands. As a result, there was a determined effort by a group of local Whites to pry that wealth away from them, and over the course of a three and a half hour running time, we see repeated attempts at fraud and outright murder to achieve this end, culminating when the nascent Bureau of Investigation (soon to have Federal added to its name) stepped in and achieved some measure of justice by exposing the villains and their conspiracy.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON reunites Scorsese with two of his favorite collaborators, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a WWI veteran who returns to his native Oklahoma after the war and becomes a willing participant in a scheme by his wealthy rancher uncle, William “King” Hale to separate their Osage neighbors from their newfound wealth. Hale is played by De Niro as the ultimate hypocrite, who presents himself as a friend to the Osage and a pious pillar of the community, all the while orchestrating schemes to have relatives and associates marry Osage women in order to poison them and inherit their oil rights, along with hiring criminals to simply use a gun whenever that is more convenient. In contrast to these two is Lily Gladstone as Mollie, the Osage woman whom Ernest marries, through her we see the suffering visited on her people. It’s a tremendous performance, done often without benefit of a lot of dialogue or showy dramatics, and a contrast to her two male co-stars. DiCaprio’s Ernest is a weak man without a moral compass, and his crimes are made worse because we feel he genuinely had affection for his Osage wife, but nevertheless slowly poisoned her anyway with doctored insulin. DiCaprio affects a “dense face” expression throughout the film to convey Ernest’s character that some viewers might consider an example of “Big Acting.” We’ve heard De Niro’s Southern accent before, and it is interesting to contrast it, along with DiCaprio’s as well, with that of Jesse Plemons, who plays the chief Bureau investigator, who actually hails from Dallas, Texas. It helps that Scorsese cast Gene Jones and Barry Corbin, both of whom were in the Coen Brothers’ NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, in small parts. I actually think Corbin would have made a better “King” Hale than De Niro, but if you can get one of the greatest working actors alive, you go with him. Brendan Fraser turns up as a loud mouth huckster lawyer, and despite some who said it felt like he was still playing his character from THE WHALE, I think he plays the part perfectly. John Lithgow appears as a prosecutor, and the supporting roles are well cast with actors sporting very distinctive faces, both Osage and White, who look like they could have just stepped out of an old photo from the time.

I do think this film is overlong, at a minimum, 45 minutes could have been cut from the running time. I think the pacing suffers because of the length, but to its credit, the final third of the film is its strongest. The screenplay by Scorsese and Eric Roth certainly could have used some tightening up. The cinematography is awesome, and shooting on location in Oklahoma makes the land itself a distinctive character right along with the actors. Nobody is a better visual storyteller than Scorsese. He’s not afraid to steal from himself, as several scenes are staged like similar ones in GOODFELLAS.

Is KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON on par with RAGING BULL, GOODFELLAS, CASINO, or THE DEPARTED? I would say no, the story is too sprawling, and many will find it too grim. There is his patented violence, but here it little resembles the gleeful viciousness of the Italian or Irish Mobs, but I think he does a great job of conveying the meanness and brutality that was always simmering under the surface in rural America—showing just what some would try in a small town. And I think the film stands as a powerful statement on human nature and its capacity for avarice and the violence it inspires. And whatever the merits of the film, it is a powerful history lesson.

Though some were thrown off by the final scene, where the ultimate fates of the principles are revealed, which is usually done with a few terse words on the screen and a photograph, I give Scorsese credit for really doing something different. Having the director himself step up and deliver the final word, is a great note to end on.

And whatever money Apple, Scorsese and the rest, make from this film, some of it should find its way back to the Osage Nation at Fairfax, Oklahoma. They’ve earned it.

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If Stephen King had written The Equalizer.

I am a diehard Stephen King fan, and have been for decades, or as some would say, “back when he was putting out his best work.” So of course I was going to get around to reading BILLY SUMMERS, picking it up last Christmas in paperback. Though I am not nearly as tough on King as some fans when it comes to his output in the 21st Century, I did think the last book of his that I read, THE INSTITUTE, was a mixed bag, as clearly the parts having to do with the young protagonists and the man who becomes his savior very much engaged him, harkening back to FIRESTARTER and CARRIE, while other parts felt as if they were written by a most disinterested author.

I’m happy to say that there was none of this drag in BILLY SUMMERS, as it is a work by a mature writer still willing to take risks, and put in the effort to craft a compelling story. The title character is an Iraqi vet who has used the skills he learned in the military and in the streets of Fallujah to become a hit man, one that Billy is quick to point out, only kills “bad men.” The book opens with Billy undertaking what he plans to be his last job before retiring after a big payday. Billy has been hired by some shady characters to assassinate a prisoner on his way to court. He’ll only get one chance at this target, and to do this he has to assume a false identity and blend into the population of a small town in order to be in the right place at the right time to take the kill shot. The story takes a twist when on the day of the hit, it becomes apparent that Billy is being double-crossed, and must then use all his skills to outwit the police and the criminals who arranged for him to make the hit in the first place. While in hiding, he comes to the aid of a young gang rape victim out of necessity, an act which sets Billy on a redemption arc, one which includes tracking down the man behind the men who set him up for a fall. It reads a lot like Stephen King’s version of THE EQUALIZER.

I guess the hit man is to modern times what gunfighters were to the Old West. One of our pop culture’s most enduring tropes is the supremely capable killing machine who, for a price, can take out anyone no matter how untouchable they might appear. The freelancer with a sniper’s rifle who can make any shot no matter how difficult, and works both sides of the law, or outside of it when necessary. This person is a fantasy, but it is one the public can’t resist.

One thing King has done well in this book is mash up the genres, borrowing liberally from man-on-the-run noirs, crime and suspense thrillers, coming-of-age tales, and on-the-road epics. Though on the surface, there appears to be no supernatural elements working in this story, there is a pertinent location cameo from THE SHINING when the characters find themselves in Colorado. Later, in Nebraska, the mention of a certain town’s name will be familiar to fans of THE STAND. But what I took from BILLY SUMMERS was that it is very solid story telling with a pace that doesn’t lag, a strong narrative, and coming in at 500 pages and some change, felt just about as long as it needed to be and no more. I found its biggest strength to be a very well-crafted title character who remained compelling to the end. It is one of King’s tried and true tropes in that he often crafts main characters who are either writers or creative in another way, so it is no surprise that he has Billy pass himself off as a writer while waiting out the days to make the hit. Because of this, Billy sits down at a computer and begins to tell his life story, thus telling the reader how he got to be the person he is now. This story within a story is King at his best, and showcases his talent for portraying the American lower class and those who fall through society’s cracks not as victims of a system, but as survivors of tough circumstances. King also did his homework when it comes to the Iraq War, crediting Bing West, and his book NO TRUE GLORY in the afterward, for creating some riveting scenes set during the battle of Fallujah. Of course no Stephen King novel is complete these days without a nod to his political views, which are most evidently expressed in this book in the depiction of a villain who has more than a passing resemblance to a certain powerful figure in American media.

All in all, I agree with those who say this is King’s best book since 11-22-63. And it makes a good companion piece of a kind with the MR. MERCEDES series, which makes me wish we could have gotten a crossover between Billy and Bill Hodges and Holly Gibney.

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The world is on fire—literally. A review of THE FIREMAN

I got a paperback copy of Joe Hill’s THE FIREMAN a few years back but didn’t get around to reading it until now. Hill, the son of Stephen King, has proven to be a talented author of horror and suspense in his own right, though I don’t think he has produced anything yet on the level of his father’s best work. I did like HEART-SHAPED BOX and NOS4A2 a lot. THE FIREMAN is Hill’s 747-page end-of-the-world apocalypse epic. It’s a genre that has seen a lot of action at the book stores over the years, but Hill does come up with a novel reason for civilization’s downfall: spontaneous combustion. This is caused by a spore which infects human beings, causing them to develop a tell-tale black and gold rash on their skin that is soon called Dragonscale, and once infected it is only a matter of time—days, weeks or a few months—until they burst into flames. It begins with a few infections, and then spreads fast, and along with it, the fires caused by the infected when they combust; cities burn, and then the countryside, as the air is constantly filled with smoke and the scent of ash is everywhere.

These types of stories are told through the eyes of a sympathetic protagonist as they witness society collapse and then deal with the consequences. In THE FIREMAN, that role is filled by Harper Grayson, a young nurse who ends up working at a hospital when the epidemic of Dragonscale shuts down the school where she worked. After the hospital burns to the ground, Harper finds herself pregnant and infected. Deserted by her husband after she refuses to kill herself, she is taken in by a community of the infected who believe they have found a way to control their affliction. But this safe haven becomes increasingly precarious as internal dissension works its way through the ranks, while the threat of Cremation Crews—armed vigilantes who hunt down and kill the infected on sight—becomes an ever greater threat. Things go from bad to worse, and then it really hits the fan—par the course for an apocalypse survival story. The title character is John Rookwood, an infected Englishman in a fireman’s uniform, who comes to Harper’s aid, and whom she becomes attracted to in the course of the book.

I am a sucker for a good end-of-the-world survival story, so I’m not as critical of THE FIREMAN as some readers. As with a lot of these books in this genre, the strongest part of the narrative is the first third, where things go to hell and the suspense comes from anticipating just what calamity is coming next. The pace does lag in the middle, but the finale does generate the right amount of dread as a small group of survivors make a desperate journey to find safety. I was proved right in my suspicion that certain things were not as they first appeared, and I truly feared for Harper’s fate in the final pages. I sometimes found Harper a little frustrating as a main character, far too trusting at times, and perhaps a little too good to be true at other points. There were times when I found myself wishing Rookwood, or one of the teenage supporting characters, were the MC, if only because they were more interestingly flawed. Of course, there has to be villains to make this kind of book pop, and I thought Hill used some rather tired tropes here: armed vigilante rednecks, religious fanatics, and authority figures who are revealed to have a lot in common with the Nazis. The real rotten apple of the whole bunch is Harper’s husband Jacob, an hysterical weakling who deserts his pregnant wife because he is afraid she has infected him, and then joins a Cremation Crew and tries to hunt her down and kill her and their unborn child. How did she pick this loser? Hill also plays a little fast and loose with the spore that spawns the Dragonscale, establishing how it is transmitted and what the outcome will be for the infected early on, but then revealing a way to control it through group interactions that result in a near hive mind situation. He goes even further by having Rookwood and others become virtual super heroes in the way they control fire, and unlike Johnny Storm, the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, somehow manage to not burn the rest of their bodies, much less their clothes.

Of course THE FIREMAN invites comparisons to Hill’s father’s apocalypse epic, THE STAND. And Hill seems to have lifted characters right out of that book. In THE FIREMAN there is a kid called Harold Cross who is a dead ringer for Harold Lauder, and more than that, there is a deaf boy named Nick, the same as Nick Andros. Harper’s plight as a pregnant woman caught up in an apocalypse is quite similar to that of Frannie Goldsmith from his father’s epic. And Jacob’s writing ambitions seem to have similarities to that of Jack Torrance. This seemed to have irked some readers to no end, but I just took it all as a shout out to one of my all-time favorite novels and rolled with it.

All in all, I thought THE FIREMAN was a good book, especially if you are into mashups of scifi and horror, but far from the best of the genre. It’s probably overlong, though some of the chapters are very short, which does help. It was written in the early 2010s and published in 2016, and I must say that parts of it read much differently in the post-Covid era, mostly in scenes concerning the official response to the Dragonscale epidemic. And in a summer where skies where hazy in the lower 48 from Canadian wildfires, not to mention the news coverage of the tragic conflagration on Maui, THE FIREMAN definitely resonated in a different way. At the end, Hill does leave open the door for a possible sequel, and I wouldn’t be averse to visiting this world again.

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True Romance: an urban fairy tale.

Once upon a time there was a lonely boy named Clarence who met a lonely girl named Alabama, and they fell in love in a dark cold city named Detroit. Clarence and Alabama were very poor, but they found some magic powder that could make them very rich because some very sad people believed the magic powder would make them very happy and they would pay lots of money for it. So Clarence and Alabama went to Los Angeles, where it was much warmer, and where there were a lot of very sad people who would buy their magic powder. Unfortunately, there were some very bad men who wanted to take the magic powder from Clarence and Alabama, and they followed them to Los Angeles, where they were very mean to the lonely boy and the lonely girl. But the two of them loved each other very much, and they stood up to the bad men, who threatened to kill them if they did not give them the magic powder. But the bad men were very greedy, wanting all the magic powder for themselves, and killed each other instead of Clarence and Alabama, who left the City of Angels with a lot of money and lived happily ever after.

That’s the plot of TRUE ROMANCE, an urban fairy tale if ever there was one. It flopped at the box office in 1993, but soon began to attract a fervent and enthusiastic cult following on VHS and cable, especially among millennial teens, who were attracted to the film’s swaggering style and casual amorality. Much of the credit for that went to Quentin Tarantino, who wrote the screenplay, which early on showcases his knack for creating memorable low life criminal characters who spout snappy dialogue. That, along with a reverence for pop culture, made TRUE ROMANCE stand out among the many crime and action thrillers which were a staple at movie theaters in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but I think the indispensible element for why the film has endured so well is director Tony Scott, who had already made films as varied as TOP GUN, BEVERLY HILLS COP 2 and THE HUNGER. Though TRUE ROMANCE is often talked about as a Tarantino film, it’s Scott who keeps the pace going, the action on track, and the story front and center. The film clocks in at a brisk two hours, and it noticeably lacks the indulgent scenes that Tarantino would become famous for when he started making his own films where a couple of very verbal characters would go off on a tangent.

One of the things that really sold the film was its cast, starting with Christian Slater as Clarence and Patricia Arquette as Alabama, who are so likable from the get go that we immediately become invested in their fate and are rooting for them despite the dubious moral choices they make. And they are backed up by one of the strongest supporting casts ever of old pros and, what were then, some real up and comers: Dennis Hopper as Clarence’s father who comes through in a pinch; Christopher Walken as an ice cold murderous mobster; Gary Oldman as a dreadlock sporting pimp; Val Kilmer as the ghost of Elvis who is Clarence’s alter ego; Michael Rappaport as an actor trying to make it in Los Angeles; Saul Rubinek as a sleazy Hollywood producer and Bronson Pinchot as his equally sleazy and slippery assistant; James Gandolfini as a truly brutal mob enforcer; Brad Pitt as one of the most stoned characters in film history. Then there are appearances by Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Conchata Farrell, Victor Argo, Kevin Corrigan, Paul Ben-Victor, Eric Allen Kramer, and Ed Lauter, some of whom make an enormous impression with only a few minutes of screen time. A number of them have passed away in the years since, and there are those whose careers were not what they should have been, but TRUE ROMANCE remains a shining credit on all their IMDb pages.

Why has this film resonated so well over the years? I think it is a story well told with lead characters whom we really sympathize with and hope will get away in the end. Like I’ve said, it is filled with vivid and memorable supporting characters, the kind we don’t always get in the usual action thriller. But more than that, I think TRUE ROMANCE’s appeal lies in a couple of scenes which really give the audience a vicarious thrill when we see underdogs go up against fearsome monsters, and if they don’t prevail, at least really draw blood. I’m talking about when Slater’s Clarence confronts Oldman’s Drexel Spivey in the pimp’s den; when Arquette’s Alabama is confronted by Gandolfini’s Virgil in her motel room; and when Hopper’s Clifford is trapped by Walken’s Don Vincenzo. These scenes have a real power to them, they are brutal and truly painful to watch, but you can’t look away. Gandolfini’s beat down of Arquette might be one of the most cringe inducing sequences ever, worse than what Michael Madsen’s Vic Vega does to Marvin Nash in Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS. That scene between Hopper and Walken, where both actors have never been better, is a masterpiece of verbal violence.

Why did TRUE ROMANCE fail at the box office? Bad timing certainly had a lot to do with it, as it was released in September after the young people, who would prove to be its biggest fans, had gone back to school. The film’s violence, and make no doubt about it, this is a very violent film, turned a lot of moviegoers off, mainly women—this is one film that was definitely not a date movie. If the producers could have held the film back for a year or so until after PULP FICTION made Tarantino the hottest talent in Hollywood, I have no doubt it would have been a huge hit, and likely would have made Christian Slater a much bigger star. Watching TRUE ROMANCE today a couple of things stand out: one is Hans Zimmer’s score, which has become iconic in the years since, and has been reused many times, and the unapologetic way the lower class characters talk, employing rude and crude language that screen writers today wouldn’t dare go near.

As it stands, TRUE ROMANCE remains one of the most re-watchable films of the past three decades. In that time, I hope Clarence and Alabama raised little Elvis up right, that Dick Ritchie finally got to act opposite William Shatner, and Floyd is still on that couch.

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The King writes a mashup of the crime thriller and supernatural genres.

You wouldn’t know it by some of his recent novels, but Stephen King is a master at writing short fiction. His short story and novella collections, NIGHT SHIFT and SKELETON CREW, contain more than one master work, and though those efforts are decades old now, he can still put out something like LATER, clocking in at just under 250 pages, that shows he yet has the knack for it this late in his illustrious career. LATER is marketed as one of his Hard Case pulp crime novels, the other two being THE COLORADO KID and JOYLAND. Because of its short length, LATER is a lean piece of work with a propulsive narrative, no extraneous subplots and characters, and with more than a touch of the supernatural.

As with most of his shorter fiction, King tells the story in the first person, this POV character being Jaime Conklin, a kid who can see dead people. Yes, I know that’s basically the MC of THE SIXTH SENSE, but this book is pure King. He gives no explanation for why Jamie can see the recently deceased, but there is a clear implication as to why which only becomes apparent at the end of the book. King also creates a few rules for the afterlife and communicating with the newly dead that bares great importance on the plot. Jamie, who discovers his peculiar talent early in life when a man who has just died in an auto accident waves at him, just rolls with it, but minds his mother’s warning not to reveal it to anyone else. King has always had a real talent for creating great sympathetic young characters, and Jamie is one of his best.

The book’s action takes place from the mid 2000s to the middle of the next decade, the years of the Great Recession. Jamie’s mother runs a literary agency that falls on hard times after the meltdown. When a particularly lucrative and reclusive romance author drops dead before finishing the final book in a series, Jamie’s frantic mother uses his talent to get the plot of the last book from the author’s ghost (the guy was one of those seat of the pants writers who never make notes or write outlines). But this subterfuge involves Jamie’s mother’s girlfriend, Liz, a policewoman who turns out to be a crooked cop. Some years go by before Liz forces Jamie to help find a bomb left by a psycho who has committed suicide. Though successful in averting disaster, Jamie’s actions saddle him with a ghost who does not leave like all the others, but one who follows him around in his daily life, and who may not really be a ghost at all, but something worse. And even worse for Jaime is Liz, who isn’t done with him yet when she gets in desperate straits and badly needs to find the stash of a dead drug kingpin.

For me, there was a lot to like here. LATER works as a crime thriller, a mystery novel, and an outright horror story. There are a few tropes that are used well, like the wise old senior who imparts some useful information to the protagonist. There is a twist at the end concerning Jamie’s parentage that some reviewers didn’t like, and which might have felt as if it came out of left field, but one which I looked at as the final piece in the puzzle. And I liked the parts of the story concerning Jamie’s mother’s profession, which surely drew on King’s long association with the professional side of the publishing business. Like most of King’s later books, there are a few callbacks to earlier works—the Ritual of Chud makes a return. All in all, LATER is King at his storytelling best, it didn’t make this Constant Reader forget THE SHINING or SALEM’S LOT, but it fits in well with later efforts like the Bill Hodges trilogy, DUMA KEY, and THE OUTSIDER. Bonus points to Paul Mann’s throwback paperback cover.

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