Reservoir Dogs to Django Unchained

The movies of Quentin Tarantino.  Recently I watched “Django Unchained” on DVD, following that up with re-watching “Reservoir Dogs” a second time.  QT makes interesting, entertaining films; they’re sometimes controversial, almost always violent, with non-linear plots, and practically no sex.  They are films for guys to watch, and women typically do not like them; though I wouldn’t be surprised if “Pulp Fiction”, “Kill Bill”, or “Jackie Brown” have some female fans.

Reservoir Dogs.  His debut.  The film has a common beginning and ending, but the middle branches out into several parallel story lines based on the individual characters.

            A crew of bank robbers fall apart on each other after the heist goes bad.  Remarkably, the heist itself is completely absent from the movie and is only referred to after the fact.  It went so bad, so quickly, that the characters naturally suspect a police informer in their midst…and they’re right.

            For security reasons, the gang members are given color code names: Mr. Blonde (Michael Marsden), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), and Mr. Brown (Harvey Keitel). 

            A uniformed police officer is caught and tortured by Mr. Blonde – he cuts his ear off.   Personally, I found that a bit distasteful, but nowhere near as unpleasant as the shower chainsaw scene in “Scarface”.

The deleted scenes on the DVD show more background of the cops’ purpose in allowing a robbery they know will happen to take place so they can finally catch Mr. Brown redhanded and send him away for life.

            BONUS  BICKERING ABOUT NOTHING.  Do you tip? 

Pulp Fiction.  By far the most popular and probably the most overrated of his films.   It competes with “Reservoir Dogs” for being the more cult favorite; my preference is for this one.  “Basterds” and “Django”, though, have impressed me enough to give “Pulp” competition for favorite status.

            Non-linear plot, various characters. 

            1)         Travolta and Jackson as Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield.   Matching suits?  Good.  Bible quote? ZZZ.  That got tiresome immediately.  This role stuck an adrenaline needle in the heart of Travolta’s acting career.

            2)         Rhames & Thurman as Marcellus and Mia Wallace

            3)         Harvey Keitel as the “Cleaner” + QT in his own role

            4)         Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge (+ his dopey GF), a boxer paid by Marcus to take a dive – predictably, he wins his fight. 

            5)         Eric Stoltz as the drug dealer; Christopher Walken as the veteran

            6)         + the weirdos in the pawnshop basement.

            I can’t even begin on this.  The plot is all over the place, but the great thing is that it never gets confusing – except for the moment before you realize the story has looped in on itself at the diner.  

            The other great thing about this film, and what distinguishes it from all the others, which are either homages or genre type films, is that “Pulp Fiction” is QT’s own original story.  This is why he could make it so wacked out.  Keitel and Roth return again.

            BONUS  BICKERING ABOUT NOTHING.  What do they call a Quarter Pounder in Paris? 

Jackie Brown.  An all-star cast, including Pam Grier herself, plus Bridget Fonda and Robert Deniro.  This is essentially QT’s “homage” to 70s blackploitation films.  There’s actually some sex in here, but not from Grier.

  Because it’s a homage to simple films from the 70s, it has a simple plot.

Kill Bill 1 & 2.  Now we have a martial arts/revenge tribute.  Moreover, QT is doing the environment a favor by recycling actors:  Michael Madsen and Uma Thurman reappear.  Here we have a major female character.

            Thurman is “The Bride”, left for dead at the altar by her erstwhile gangmates and the groom himself.  She tracks down and kills each one separately:  Vernita Green (Vivica Fox), Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah), Budd (Michael Madsen), Ishii (Lucy Liu), and then Bill himself, David Carradine.  The Lucy Liu segment is my favorite: an animated sequence plus an implausibly vast number of attackers.

Grindhouse: Death Proof.  Kurt Russell and Rose McGowan are the stars.  Russell plays a mysterious killer, first driving a primered Chevy Nova, then a primered Dodge Charger.  The story has two parts.  This looks like QT’s shot at doing a horror movie.  Russell is cool as the bad ass villain, even nastier than Snake Plissken.  The fake trailer for “Machete” eventually became the real Danny Trejo film.  Nude Lindsay Lohan?  Awesome, but “Machete” tops both this film and “Planet Terror”, the Robert Rodriguez zombie film tacked on to “Death Proof” as the “Grindhouse” double feature.

Inglorious Basterds.  QT takes a shot at a World War II film.  Although Brad Pitt, leader of an eccentric “Dirty Dozen” type Jewish-American unit going behind German lines collecting “Natzi scalps”, is supposedly the lead character in this movie, Christoph Waltz, as the personable, multilingual, charismatic SS officer Hans Landa, really steals the show.

Django Unchained.  This is the newest one.  Jamie Foxx plays Django, a freed slave who becomes a bounty hunter seeking to find his long lost wife, Broomhilda.  He’s assisted by King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a former dentist now acting as a bounty hunter.  Mind you, “bounty hunter” at this time (1858) means “kill wanted criminal and collect the reward”, not “capture bail escapee and bring back to trial alive”, as it does these days.

    Don Johnson plays a Colonel Sanders-type plantation owner, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, the plantation owner who owns Broomhilda, and Samuel L. Jackson is the “house slave”, always with his master’s best interests at heart, who alerts Candie to the pair’s agenda of seeking Broomhilda, rather than Candie’s fighting slaves (mandingos).   QT himself, Tom Wopat, Bruce Dern, and Jonah Hill are in here as minor characters; Franco Nero himself (the original “Django”) has a minor role as an unlucky mandingo owner. 

   This seems to be QT’s “take on slavery”.  The N-word gets heavy abuse, and there is just as much delicious violence as any of QT’s other films, but bear with it.  It’s another fun ride.  This one has the slugfest at the end, where it usually ends up.

Honorable (?) mentions (QT as actor and not director):

1)         From Dusk Till Dawn.  QT and George Clooney take on vampires in a Mexican bar.  Salma Hayek may possibly salvage this horrible movie from oblivion with her undeniable hotness.  Cheech didn’t.

2)         Sukiyaki Western Django.  Here’s the funny part.  “Django Unchained” has nothing to do with the original movie, “Django”, in which Franco Nero played the title role.  QT simply took the name.  But this film, which actually has QT in a minor role, takes “Django” and transplants it to Japan.  Those of you familiar with “A Fistful of Dollars” will recognize the plot: mysterious stranger comes to town and plays two gangs against each other.  However, both “Django” movies include an ingredient Eastwood left out: the coffin.  Watch and enjoy.

Please Stand Up

In three monumental instances, an anonymous fan has dramatically impacted a band’s direction, yet to this date has never come forward, and thus remains unknown – even after the story has been told countless times, and will be told again here by me.

Moody Blues.   By now the ‘Blues are best known for pretentious prog-rock masterpieces like December 1967’s Days of Future Passed.  Before that, though, they had one album, The Magnificent Moodies, full of R&B tunes which sound nothing like their later material; Justin Hayward and John Lodge weren’t even in the band.  Hayward, the guitarist/vocalist, replaced Denny Laine (later to wind up in the Wings with Paul McCartney) and bassist/vocalist Lodge replaced Clint Warwick.  Instead of obvious MB favorites like “Tuesday Afternoon” or “Nights in White Satin”, Ozzy Osbourne covered “Go Now”, which dates from MB Mark I, so to speak.

What pushed them into prog territory was a chance encounter with a disgruntled fan after a show in Stockton, wherever that is.  Despite a new lineup, they were still doing their R&B set.  The fan bitched at them for a terrible show and a waste of 12 pounds and a ruined evening with his wife.  Drummer Graeme Edge concurred with the fan’s assessment: a change was needed.  After the record label had asked them to do a cover of Dvorak’s Symphony #9 in stereo, they simply decided to make their own concept album, about the passage of a day from dawn to midnight:  Days of Future Passed.

I read the account in the most recent PROG magazine article (cover story) on the Moody Blues.  But to date, that mysterious couple appears lost to history.

Deep Purple.    In December 1971, Deep Purple were due to record the album which would be Machine Head at the Casino in Montreux, Switzerland.  Before that, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played a concert there, which was interrupted by “some stupid with a flare gun…burned the place to the ground.”  They had to record at the Grand Hotel next door, using the “Rolling Truck Stones thing” (mobile unit).  One song which came out of the recording sessions was the story of the whole debacle, better known as “Smoke on the Water”, with its classic riff.  Without the flare gun incident, the album would have been recorded at the Casino, without “Smoke on the Water”.   Who knows how it would have sounded, but it would have been without the band’s ultimate anthem.

But the gun nut?  Somehow this person has never come forward to take the blame – or the credit – after over 40 years.  

Pink Floyd.   On the 1977 In the Flesh tour for the Animals album, Pink Floyd were now playing stadiums, far larger venues than the UFO club in London where they started out as the house band for the London equivalent of Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests in California – for which the house band was the Grateful Dead.   Instead of tight, intimate venues, the band faced a vast multitude of faceless fans.  Some of these fans were rather rude and boisterous.  Something in Roger Waters snapped, and at the show in Montreal, he spit on a fan.   Afterwards, shocked at his own behavior, Waters realized that an invisible wall had somehow erected – either by circumstances or by Waters himself – between the band and its fans.  Waters explored the concept further, into what we now know of as The Wall album.

   To date, I am not aware that the Spit Victim has ever come forward, perhaps (in French Canadian accent) “ees me, ‘e spit on!  I am zee inspiration for ze Wall!  Ou sont mes royalties??”

** IN fact, since none of these persons have come to light, perhaps they are all… the same person!  A mysterious muse who remains anonymous, yet spurs the great and mighty minds of music to greater heights.   Someone had to tell the Moody Blues they sucked, so they would write Days of Future Passed instead of repeating The Magnificent Moodies yet again.  Someone had to shoot off a flare gun in the Casino, to inspire “Smoke on the Water.”  Someone had to incite Roger Waters to spit on him, so we could enjoy The Wall. 

So, Mr. Mysterious Musical Muse, a Real Man of Genius, Bud Light salutes you.

Funerals

Recently my Uncle Buddy died, abruptly, and a week later we had his funeral in the local area.  While I’ve been to plenty of weddings, funerals I’m not so familiar with – fortunately – but I have a feeling that I’ll be going to more of them as I get older.  Eventually I’ll have my own - hopefully not too soon.

My prior experience was my father’s, back in December 2004, just a week before Christmas.  I gave a eulogy at the funeral mass.  The uncle mentioned above was my father’s older brother, so the same family members were at both gatherings.  I actually enjoy meeting them, so it’s a shame that it takes a funeral to bring us together.  In fact, a reunion we had years ago – while my father was still alive – was organized precisely for that reason.  With my aunt getting weaker, we’re long overdue for another reunion.

Wake/Viewing.  The night before the funeral is the equivalent of the rehearsal dinner: the wake and/or viewing, held at the funeral home.  The casket was open, so we got a chance to “pay our respects.” That seems to mean, kneel down in front of the casket and gaze down with love or grief at the body.  The deceased looks…almost like wax.  I suppose it’s unrealistic to expect our beloved to truly appear “lifelike” given the circumstances.  My father himself once worked in an undertaker’s office when he was a teenager, so he explained that “we expect the body will decompose once it’s in the coffin and buried.  The embalming doesn’t preserve the body indefinitely, only so long as the viewing and funeral.”  It’s only in very rare cases like Lenin or Mao that the body is permanently embalmed (we can only wonder what happens to taxidermists when they die).

Funeral.  Neither funeral was in those small TV or Hollywood parlors.  Neither funeral involved mysterious women showing up claiming to be a mistress, or forgotten love children coming out of nowhere.  Nope, no scandals in our family….yet.  No one gave a eulogy at my uncle’s funeral, but my cousin Jimmy did repeat one of Uncle Buddy’s stories, very much in the same voice and style – and extreme length (!) – as Uncle Buddy himself would have.  Our family has a common bond of humor.  Uncle Buddy’s forte was long stories, well told, in fact so enthralling that to complain “enough already” never occurred to us.  My father was considerably less verbose but every bit as irreverent and comical.  Each had his own style.

Reception.  Just like a wedding, the funeral seems to be followed by a reception, though without music or dancing.  Perhaps they need a black bouquet:  who will catch the Reaper’s bouquet and be the next to die?  I can’t imagine a rush of young girls doing that.  Nor is there a flower girl or ring bearer, a best man, a maid of honor, or a huge death cake, nor would anyone want to put a garter on the deceased.  Not all the wedding traditions have funeral equivalents.  Presumably, however, we hope that our prayers and the funeral mass ensure that the deceased will, in fact, enjoy an eternal honeymoon in a much more pleasant place. 

Hair Metal

 Woody Metal.  Back at college – the University of Maryland, College Park – in 1988, we had a friend, who we’ll call Woody (yes, his name actually was Woody).  Woody was actually the first friend I had at UMCP; I met him at freshman orientation during the summer of 1986.  Eventually I wound up in his same suite on campus.

            Woody’s preference for music was what is often referred to as “hair metal”, but we called it “Woody metal”.  Bands like Motley Crue, Poison, Twisted Sister, Guns N’Roses.   ‘Sister in fact was his favorite band before Appetite For Destruction came out, at which point Woody then preached the Gospel of Axl to anyone who would listen.

            He also listened to Fates Warning, Queensryche, AC/DC, and other bands which didn’t fit that mold, and he was certainly intelligent enough to articulate his preferences and explain exactly WHY Appetite was the best album ever.  He wasn’t Beavis or Butt-head.

            So I may as well review this type of music.

The way I see it, there were two parallel “metal” movements in the 1980s:  “heavy metal” and “hair metal”.  What I’d call “heavy metal” was Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Rush, AC/DC, Metallica, Megadeth, who took themselves seriously and wrote about nuclear war, social issues, war, etc. and not merely partying.  Their sounds were heavier, darker, and more disturbing.  I definitely prefer this kind of music.  I also like “stoner rock”, which is essentially 80’s heavy metal with a heavy dose of weirdness and psychedelia, even jamming, but this type of music didn’t emerge until the 1990s at the earliest, with Sleep and Kyuss being the original two stoner rock bands – leaving aside its obvious basis, Black Sabbath.

Music style: Jackson & Charvel guitars in most cases, played through Marshalls, with high speed guitars and shrieking vocals.  The lyrics were deliberately unsophisticated and unpretentious: girls, alcohol, drugs, fast living, partying 24/7, etc.  Though by that standard, AC/DC qualify as a hair metal band.  Anyhow.

Motley Crue.  Arguably the premiere band, though GNR make a good case for competition.  The top albums: Shout At the Devil, Girls, Girls, Girls, and Dr Feelgood.  We saw them on the Theater of Pain tour.  By now drummer Tommy Lee has far eclipsed Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars and Vince Neil as the most famous band member, due to his …famous member.  ‘Crue can be described as mindless party rock, competently executed.

Poison.  Clearly Bret Michaels and his crew were emulating ‘Crue, though with more makeup and hairspray.  Look What The Cat Dragged In is their Dark Side.  It was the first album my brother got for his newly purchased CD player.

Ratt.  This is MY favorite among them.  “Round and Round” is the top hit, from their Dark Side, Out of the Cellar.  We saw them at Donington in 1985.

Def Leppard.  Emerging from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the only band of that genre to successfully sell out; Diamond Head crashed and burned trying to do the same, whereas Iron Maiden and Saxon remained true to their NWOBHM roots.  My favorite album (naturally, pre-sellout) is High N’Dry, but Pyromania and Hysteria probably rank higher as objectively landmark ‘Leppard discs.  We saw them on the Hysteria tour back in 1987.

Cinderella.  By far the most blues-based and musically legitimate band, but I could never get past Tom Keifer’s makeup and the band’s lame name.

Skid Row.  Bitter rivals to ‘Crue thanks to Sebastian Bach, but I do like Bach’s healthy self-deprecation.  I’m less impressed with their hits than their covers album; of their originals, “Monkey Business”, from Slave to the Grind, is my favorite.

Twisted Sister.  How could I forget them?  Nasty transvestites, I suppose:  Dee Snider and Mark Mendoza looked like cross-dressers who’d just as soon kick your ass as kiss it.  “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, and Stay Hungry, remain their top hit and album.  We saw them on the Come Out and Play tour in Paris, and the Love is For Suckers tour in DC.

Guns N’Roses.  By now Slash has eclipsed Axl as a musical force in 2013, because he manages to make albums and tour with some degree of reliability, and doesn’t play the petulant, jaded, immature, spoiled rock star like Axl.  The cursing/stumbling drunk Slash of 1988 has been replaced by a guy who looks exactly the same but actually behaves normally by rock star standards.  Axl took 14 years to give us Chinese Democracy, a mediocre album which doesn’t make up for the time spent making it.  Appetite remains their peak.  The twin Use Your Illusion albums would have been a masterpiece if they simply combined the best of both onto one album, instead of a bloated, uneven, and inconsistent double studio album – but “Estranged” is arguably their best song.  We saw GNR in July 1992 at RFK on their joint tour with Metallica.

Pantera.  I haven’t heard the earlier era Pantera (pre-Phil Anselmo) which was a glam rock version.  Dimebag Darrell was cleanshaven and had his hair all pouffed up.  Firehouse, Warrant, and Bullet Boys were also glam bands.  By the time we saw them at the Ozzfest one year, they were well into their thrash era.
 

Bon Jovi.  Clearly from New Jersey and not L.A.  This band had the sound down cold, but the lyrics were closer to Tesla’s more naïve and innocent type, at least later as they matured: “Bad Medicine” and Slippery When Wet were still “bad boy” type of material.  “Wanted Dead or Alive” was more “cowboys of peace” B.S. but still their best song.  We saw them at Donington in 1985, but I can't remember anything about their set - I was resting on the grass with a headache.

Dokken.  Definitely “hair metal”.  We had a friend, Stam, from Greece, who was convinced that George Lynch was the best guitarist ever.  My brother considered singer Don Dokken to be not quite svelte enough for this type of music.  “Alone Again” is probably their best song, from Tooth & Nail, but we also had Under Lock & Key on vinyl.  We saw them open for Accept in 1986 in Paris.

White Lion.  Mike Tramp on vocals, Vito Bratta on guitar, not particularly original or different than the rest, but no worse either.  Tramp seems to be the only consistent member; according to him, Bratta appears to be the Ritchie Blackmore of the band, a petulant, uncooperative prima donna.   Tramp insists that a White Lion reunion is not going to happen.  We saw them open for AC/DC at Madison Square Garden in 1988.

Whitesnake.  I suppose the ’87 model + Slip of the Tongue qualify as “hair metal” after they ditched the Zeppelin-clone era of Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody – back when they still played Deep Purple Mark III songs in concert.  “Still of the Night” is excellent, and they resurrected some earlier material (“Here I Go Again” and “Crying in the Rain” from Saints & Sinners).   Having Tawny Kitaen in the vids should cement them into this category regardless of the blues orientation of the prior material.  We saw them on the Slip tour in early 1988.

Tesla.  For some reason, probably sheer coincidence of time, this band gets lumped in, but I would argue they are NOT a hair metal band, although they appear resigned to accepting that label.  First off, the lyrics are far too naïve, good-natured, and introspective, and not about partying.  Second, Jeff Keith really doesn’t play the “Steven Tyler” role, and the rest of the band dress more like AC/DC than ‘Crue.  Finally, lead guitarist Frank Hannon owes more to Angus Young than Mick Mars. I've seen them a few times recently, but also back in 1987 opening for Def Leppard.

Grunge.  Recently Dave Grohl, the drummer for Nirvana, was doing a documentary (“Sound City”) on Sound City, a famous L.A. recording studio, Sound City.  Ratt recorded Out of the Cellar there, so he tried to contact the band.  He laughed, because the band were unsure why he, of all persons, would be talking to them.  The general consensus is that hair metal was “killed” by grunge, with Nirvana being the major culprit for hair metal’s demise.

Rock of Ages.  Although I never saw the Broadway musical, I did catch the film version with Tom Cruise as Staycee Jaxx.  It’s truly a celebration of hair metal at its best/worst.  I can’t comment as to whether it “captures the scene”, as I only got to L.A. and the Strip in 2010, long after the scene was dead.  It certainly catches the music and the spirit.  For anyone even vaguely interested in that type of music – or even vaguely nostalgic – by all means, watch it.