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Hi guys. Been a bit of a rough winter here in NYC, and the family has been struggling to stay balanced. My wife is having gastrointestinal problems again, and the Boy’s grades aren’t up to snuff this trimester. Movies are a wonderful way to forget your troubles....
Heavy Metal (1981); directed by Gerald Potterton
This movie is an anomaly, an experiment in adult animation that’s never really been duplicated since—which is probably all for the best.
It was an attempt to transfer some of the content (and the spirit) of the Heavy Metal comix of the 1970s to the cinema, and it mostly succeeded—for better and for worse.
For those of you too young (or too disinterested) to remember, Heavy Metal was the American version of the French comic magazine Metal Hurlant, the first real breakthrough in comix outside the Marvel/DC superhero axis, featuring artists like Moebius (Jean Giraud) and Richard Corben. I don’t want to go too much into the magazine, but it was hugely influential in terms of its graphic design; you can see how much Ridley Scott pinched off Moebius in Blade Runner (and Metalheads could probably give you a dozen better examples).
Unfortunately, the magazine is not remembered for its graphic design--no, if anybody remembers Heavy Metal these days, it’s for one thing: Barbarian Warrior Women with Big Tits. This is both grossly unfair and amusingly appropriate, because a fair percentage of the stories in the magazine were sword and sorcery epics with copious amounts of skin and blood curdling violence. It was a version of “adult” storytelling a 13 year-old boy would think was really, really cool.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we get in the movie: genre exercises with copious amounts of skin and blood curdling violence, from futuristic noir to stoner space comedy to the barbarian epic that caps off the film. There are pleasures along the way: Harry Canyon, the grizzled cabbie in far future (2031!) New York, was obviously the inspiration for Bruce Willis’ character in The Fifth Element; it’s a treat to hear the comedy giants of late 70s Canadian TV—Harold Ramis, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Richard Romanus and Joe Flaherty—coming out of the animated characters, knowing that most of these guys (and producer Ivan Reitman) will hit it big in just a few years; and the soundtrack is simply fantastic, with Elmer Bernstein providing a solid orchestral score for the “Taarna” segment, and songs from metal giants Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult, along with the earworm of a title track from (ex-)Eagle Don Felder. (South Park would use Felder’s “Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride)” to great effect in “Major Boobage,” its parody of the movie. It’s a very funny episode; catch it some time….)
But a lot of this stuff simply hasn’t aged very well, as animation has taken great leaps forward in both design and content, dealing with adult themes with more depth than just mass evisceration and showing off a great rack.
(Still… if you’re a 13 year-old boy, you would probably think this movie is really, really cool.)
Putney Swope (1969); written and directed by Robert Downey
“Putney Swope,” Robert Downey’s most famous contribution to pop culture (if you don’t count Robert Downey Jr., that is), is still slightly scandalous, even fifty plus years after its debut. It’s a Black Power movie written and directed by a white, Jewish cinematic anarchist. The lead actor had all of his dialogue dubbed by Downey. It tackles racism, miscegenation, and sexual politics in ways that would make a lot of people extremely uncomfortable, even today. It’s got so much great stuff that it’s a shame the movie doesn’t really hold together.
The movie probably peaks in its first ten minutes, which is about as scathing a piece of Madison Avenue satire as you’ll find from that era. After a consumer trends expert (who’s dressed like an extra from Easy Rider) tells the Board of Directors of an advertising agency that their client’s beer is “pee pee dickey” and men only drink it to compensate for sexual inadequacy, the board members dissolve into adolescent squabbling, capped by the CEO dying in mid-speech and sprawling across the conference table. The board then votes for the next CEO (with the old one still lying on the table, mind you), but someone points out that corporate by-laws say you can’t vote for yourself. Scratch that ballot. Second vote: through an absurd quirk of corporate maneuvering, everyone defaults to a “neutral” candidate, token black executive Putney Swope. As the new CEO, Swope immediately fires the entire board, replacing them with black revolutionaries, and changes the agency name to Truth and Soul Inc.
After that opening salvo, Downey loosens his grip on the plot, and the movie segues into a series of scattershot vignettes, highlighted by the parodies/provocations for Truth and Soul’s ad campaigns. (An interracial couple’s touching and horny love song for Face-Off pimple cream is especially inspired.) Some running gags--like the freelance photographer and his portfolio--still work great; others--the President of the United States is a Hungarian dwarf!--do not.
But Swope himself remains frustratingly vague: is he a revolutionary, determined to bring down the system or just another huckster, as venal and greedy as the men he replaced? Throughout the movie, Antonio Fargas (in a ridiculous Arab headdress) loudly proclaims the latter, but Downey kind of plays it every way at once, with Swope taking on whichever role is appropriate for that vignette. He’s alternately dressed in three-piece suit, African dashiki, and Fidel Castro fatigues, speaking truth to power or total bullshit. That he’s literally a mouthpiece for the director takes away his agency as the protagonist and blunts any serious character exploration.
Downey, though, isn’t really interested in character exploration; he just wants to throw bombs at the audience and take his money home at the end. In that, he is successful. Putney Swope is a favorite of some of today’s most influential directors, including Paul Thomas Anderson, and Downey’s anarchic style can be seen as an inspiration for Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” (among others). He never had the crowd-pleasing instincts of a Mel Brooks (who makes a very brief cameo in this movie!), and his films aren’t to everyone’s taste (to put it mildly), but “Putney Swope” really should be seen at least once, just to show you how far somebody can push the limits of good taste and still make a living in the movies...
Knives Out (2019): written and directed by Rian Johnson
After Putney Swope, this is a wonderful palette cleanser, a throwback to the Agatha Christie novels of old and their cinematic adaptations, with a modern class-conscious twist thrown in. I think Johnson specifically evokes the 1970s version of “Murder on the Orient Express” with Daniel Craig taking the place of Albert Finney as the master detective with the outraaaaaaaaaaageous accent. (I love how Chris Evans’ character is irritated by Benoit Blanc’s “Kentucky Fried, Foghorn Leghorn” southern drawl for the whole movie.)
Like “Orient Express”, Johnson gives his vast ensemble/suspect pool generous room to reel off spectacular solo runs. I was especially impressed by the relatively restrained work by Michael Shannon as the eldest son of the murder victim, who ran his father’s publishing imprint, but wound up trapped in his role as caretaker. The central character, Marta (the victim’s nurse), is almost a Mary Sue, but Johnson gives her just enough of an edge to keep the audience wondering if she’s going to succumb to the various temptations thrown in her path during the movie.
There are one too many twists along the way, and the movie goes on a little too long, but the resolution satisfies and the final shot brings a smile to your face. Johnson and Craig (cornpone accent and all) will be back with the sequel this year. Looking forward to it.
Heavy Metal (1981); directed by Gerald Potterton
This movie is an anomaly, an experiment in adult animation that’s never really been duplicated since—which is probably all for the best.
It was an attempt to transfer some of the content (and the spirit) of the Heavy Metal comix of the 1970s to the cinema, and it mostly succeeded—for better and for worse.
For those of you too young (or too disinterested) to remember, Heavy Metal was the American version of the French comic magazine Metal Hurlant, the first real breakthrough in comix outside the Marvel/DC superhero axis, featuring artists like Moebius (Jean Giraud) and Richard Corben. I don’t want to go too much into the magazine, but it was hugely influential in terms of its graphic design; you can see how much Ridley Scott pinched off Moebius in Blade Runner (and Metalheads could probably give you a dozen better examples).
Unfortunately, the magazine is not remembered for its graphic design--no, if anybody remembers Heavy Metal these days, it’s for one thing: Barbarian Warrior Women with Big Tits. This is both grossly unfair and amusingly appropriate, because a fair percentage of the stories in the magazine were sword and sorcery epics with copious amounts of skin and blood curdling violence. It was a version of “adult” storytelling a 13 year-old boy would think was really, really cool.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we get in the movie: genre exercises with copious amounts of skin and blood curdling violence, from futuristic noir to stoner space comedy to the barbarian epic that caps off the film. There are pleasures along the way: Harry Canyon, the grizzled cabbie in far future (2031!) New York, was obviously the inspiration for Bruce Willis’ character in The Fifth Element; it’s a treat to hear the comedy giants of late 70s Canadian TV—Harold Ramis, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Richard Romanus and Joe Flaherty—coming out of the animated characters, knowing that most of these guys (and producer Ivan Reitman) will hit it big in just a few years; and the soundtrack is simply fantastic, with Elmer Bernstein providing a solid orchestral score for the “Taarna” segment, and songs from metal giants Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult, along with the earworm of a title track from (ex-)Eagle Don Felder. (South Park would use Felder’s “Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride)” to great effect in “Major Boobage,” its parody of the movie. It’s a very funny episode; catch it some time….)
But a lot of this stuff simply hasn’t aged very well, as animation has taken great leaps forward in both design and content, dealing with adult themes with more depth than just mass evisceration and showing off a great rack.
(Still… if you’re a 13 year-old boy, you would probably think this movie is really, really cool.)
Putney Swope (1969); written and directed by Robert Downey
“Putney Swope,” Robert Downey’s most famous contribution to pop culture (if you don’t count Robert Downey Jr., that is), is still slightly scandalous, even fifty plus years after its debut. It’s a Black Power movie written and directed by a white, Jewish cinematic anarchist. The lead actor had all of his dialogue dubbed by Downey. It tackles racism, miscegenation, and sexual politics in ways that would make a lot of people extremely uncomfortable, even today. It’s got so much great stuff that it’s a shame the movie doesn’t really hold together.
The movie probably peaks in its first ten minutes, which is about as scathing a piece of Madison Avenue satire as you’ll find from that era. After a consumer trends expert (who’s dressed like an extra from Easy Rider) tells the Board of Directors of an advertising agency that their client’s beer is “pee pee dickey” and men only drink it to compensate for sexual inadequacy, the board members dissolve into adolescent squabbling, capped by the CEO dying in mid-speech and sprawling across the conference table. The board then votes for the next CEO (with the old one still lying on the table, mind you), but someone points out that corporate by-laws say you can’t vote for yourself. Scratch that ballot. Second vote: through an absurd quirk of corporate maneuvering, everyone defaults to a “neutral” candidate, token black executive Putney Swope. As the new CEO, Swope immediately fires the entire board, replacing them with black revolutionaries, and changes the agency name to Truth and Soul Inc.
After that opening salvo, Downey loosens his grip on the plot, and the movie segues into a series of scattershot vignettes, highlighted by the parodies/provocations for Truth and Soul’s ad campaigns. (An interracial couple’s touching and horny love song for Face-Off pimple cream is especially inspired.) Some running gags--like the freelance photographer and his portfolio--still work great; others--the President of the United States is a Hungarian dwarf!--do not.
But Swope himself remains frustratingly vague: is he a revolutionary, determined to bring down the system or just another huckster, as venal and greedy as the men he replaced? Throughout the movie, Antonio Fargas (in a ridiculous Arab headdress) loudly proclaims the latter, but Downey kind of plays it every way at once, with Swope taking on whichever role is appropriate for that vignette. He’s alternately dressed in three-piece suit, African dashiki, and Fidel Castro fatigues, speaking truth to power or total bullshit. That he’s literally a mouthpiece for the director takes away his agency as the protagonist and blunts any serious character exploration.
Downey, though, isn’t really interested in character exploration; he just wants to throw bombs at the audience and take his money home at the end. In that, he is successful. Putney Swope is a favorite of some of today’s most influential directors, including Paul Thomas Anderson, and Downey’s anarchic style can be seen as an inspiration for Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” (among others). He never had the crowd-pleasing instincts of a Mel Brooks (who makes a very brief cameo in this movie!), and his films aren’t to everyone’s taste (to put it mildly), but “Putney Swope” really should be seen at least once, just to show you how far somebody can push the limits of good taste and still make a living in the movies...
Knives Out (2019): written and directed by Rian Johnson
After Putney Swope, this is a wonderful palette cleanser, a throwback to the Agatha Christie novels of old and their cinematic adaptations, with a modern class-conscious twist thrown in. I think Johnson specifically evokes the 1970s version of “Murder on the Orient Express” with Daniel Craig taking the place of Albert Finney as the master detective with the outraaaaaaaaaaageous accent. (I love how Chris Evans’ character is irritated by Benoit Blanc’s “Kentucky Fried, Foghorn Leghorn” southern drawl for the whole movie.)
Like “Orient Express”, Johnson gives his vast ensemble/suspect pool generous room to reel off spectacular solo runs. I was especially impressed by the relatively restrained work by Michael Shannon as the eldest son of the murder victim, who ran his father’s publishing imprint, but wound up trapped in his role as caretaker. The central character, Marta (the victim’s nurse), is almost a Mary Sue, but Johnson gives her just enough of an edge to keep the audience wondering if she’s going to succumb to the various temptations thrown in her path during the movie.
There are one too many twists along the way, and the movie goes on a little too long, but the resolution satisfies and the final shot brings a smile to your face. Johnson and Craig (cornpone accent and all) will be back with the sequel this year. Looking forward to it.
