A Picture for a Dollar on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams

By Steve Evans

About a decade ago I watched a wildly entertaining and mildly disturbing documentary called Confessions of a Superhero (2007). The film follows four street performers who dress up in costumes and prowl Hollywood Boulevard, offering to take photos with tourists for tips. Sometimes they get aggressive in their pursuit of those tips and police get involved.

Aside from the obvious mental problems many of these performers exhibit, what struck me was their unanimous determination to become movie stars, despite the absence of any discernable talent. They had convinced themselves that panhandling in superhero costumes would lead to discovery, movie offers, fame and fortune. In the 12 years since the documentary was released, the gal who roleplayed as Wonder Woman went on to marry B-movie star Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers; 1997), so you could say she came the closest to success.

Mostly, though, the documentary is a meditation on our cultural obsession with celebrity. And what is life without the pursuit of a dream?

To that I say there are dreams and then there are delusions, and some people cannot tell the difference.

I mention all this because Christopher Dennis, the street performer who dressed up as Superman, was one of the first costumed panhandlers on Hollywood Boulevard. Some say he bore an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Reeves, who played Superman in four movies from 1978-1987.

Dennis had been panhandling in costume more than 25 years when his body was found over the weekend head-first in a clothing donation bin in the San Fernando Valley, about 10 miles from where he plied his trade. He was 52. Early police reports say no foul play is suspected and that he was most likely rooting around for something to wear.

Dennis had frequently been homeless. A recovering drug addict, his wife left him after being unable to cope with the 15,000 items of Superman memorabilia he had packed into their trailer. A couple years ago, another homeless man nearly beat Dennis to death with a golf club, stole his Superman costume and set it on fire. With the help of a friend, Dennis raised some money with a crowdfunding campaign to buy another costume. The leftover funds paid for rent until the money ran out and he was back on the streets.

Dennis claims several times in the documentary that he is the son of Sandy Dennis, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). There is no record of Sandy Dennis ever having had a child. The actress died in 1992. Christopher Dennis stuck to his story and shared it with anyone who would listen until the day he died.

We could dwell on the sorrow & the pity of a life lived tragically along the boulevard of broken dreams, but that’s not what I’m about. No, I was shaking my head this morning at the outpouring of sympathy for Christopher Dennis in certain corners of the Internet. Condolences are all very nice and, yes, even obligatory. I merely wish that people who make a big deal over a troubled person’s death, especially people close to that person, would instead have done something helpful while the individual was still alive.

Rubbernecking is borne on the natural human instinct of satisfying our curiosity and to some degree that’s what documentary films deliver. Confessions of a Superhero is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of damaged people clinging to threads of hope. But on reflection, I see that if rubbernecking is all we do, then we’re not part of the solution; we’re part of the problem. So I’m delivering a case of canned goods this evening to Loaves & Fishes, the local food pantry. It’s not much, I confess, but perhaps it compensates somewhat for this lengthy post. Thanks for reading.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve B. Evans. All rights reserved.

Eddie Murphy is 0utta Sight in My Name is Dolemite

By Steve Evans “I believe in America.” That’s the opening line in The Godfather (1972). It’s also a sentiment I share. Because of that belief, I’ve always rooted for the underdog and embraced rags-to-riches stories. I’ve also been a fan of the late comedian Rudy Ray Moore since before I was old enough to buy and listen to his records legally. Rudy told absolutely filthy jokes in a wild, rapping rhyme style while wearing fluorescent tuxedoes and flaunting a gloriously defiant attitude. Rudy was a poor black dude who escaped Arkansas, made it to Los Angeles, and eventually recorded some top-selling comedy albums and shot a few films during the 1970s heyday of Blaxploitation cinema. We’re talking films with improbable titles like Disco Godfather and The Human Tornado and Dolemite, the name of Rudy’s signature character.
Dolemite was always persecuted by whitey and harassed by vicious drug dealers in the ‘hood. But he knew how to street fight and had an army of fabulous Kung Fu bitches at his beck and call. Plus some retina-burning fashions and an ungodly vocabulary. These movies were made on the cheap and are among the most entertaining motion pictures you’ve probably never seen.
Eddie Murphy transforms into this self-made entrepreneur in the new Netflix film, Dolemite is My Name. It’s dynamite. I have sorely missed Eddie Murphy doing what he does best – balls-to-the-wall street comedy. Having seen all of Rudy Ray Moore’s films, I can tell you unequivocally that Murphy nails the character and the man behind him. This is Oscar-worthy stuff. Also extremely foul-mouthed and hilarious.
Funnier still, the spot-on script about 1970s black culture was written by a couple of white boys: Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, perhaps best known for writing the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon (1999). They totally capture the era of urban cinema, of hustlers and hucksters, and give Murphy, Wesley Snipes, Snoop Dogg, Chris Rock and others some of their best material in years. This is a great film. Would make a terrific double feature with The Disaster Artist -- stories that reinforce the notion that determination, not talent, is often the greater key to success.
God, I love this country. I believe in America.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve B. Evans. All rights reserved.

Walking the Walk

By Steve Evans

When I was 10 years old, in 1973, I experienced the heart-stopping fear of vertigo during a visit to the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York City. That terror of heights stopped only when I cured myself 12 years later by skydiving from the first plane I ever flew in.

It is nothing compared to tonight’s double feature, the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire (2008), which chronicles the death-defying tightrope stunt of Philippe Petit, and The Walk (2015), a fictionalized account of the same event. And what was this event, you ask?

Petit and several accomplices in 1974 rigged a cable between the Twin Towers in NYC under cover of darkness and at dawn he crossed that thin umbilical on foot multiple times some 200 feet between the skyscrapers, back and forth, at a height of nearly 1,800 feet over lower Manhattan, stooping on one knee to salute the cheering crowd far below and laying on his back along the cable minutes later, without benefit of safety equipment. He pranced on the wire for about 45 minutes before high winds and a police helicopter threatened to knock him off his precarious perch. So he returned to the north tower.

The police handcuffed the aerialist and read him his Miranda rights. Petit was taken to a hospital for psychiatric examination, then booked for disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing. Under details of the complaint, the arresting officer wrote only “Man on Wire.” The same afternoon, Aug. 7, 1974, Manhattan’s district attorney dropped all charges in return for Petit’s agreement to give a free aerial performance in Central Park, this time only a few feet off the ground. He did.

The Twin Towers are long gone. Inspiration, though, is forever.

I share this not so much in enduring astonishment at Petit’s titanium balls and divine madness in pursuit of an artistic vision, but because life is beautiful, great art should be breathtaking and fear is only a state of mind to be conquered.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Tarantino's Greek Chorus

By Steve Evans

Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino understand how to use songs in a film like no other living director. Take your pick: Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Casino, Jackie Brown, The Departed, Django Unchained. Brilliant music in every one. Great song selections underline the storyline without bludgeoning home the point.

Both men have new films coming out this year. Tarantino’s lands first. The full trailer for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood dropped today and it promises amazing entertainment. A film about lost innocence along the boulevard of broken dreams. I encourage you to check out the new trailer on YouTube.

Back on point, one of the tunes he’s using on the soundtrack is by the obscure band Los Bravos. It’s a typical Tarantino choice: all but forgotten, catchy as hell, contemporaneous to the film’s setting and brimming with sly commentary about the onscreen action. Just like a great soundtrack should.

So if you know the fate of Sharon Tate and listen to the lyrics of Bring a Little Lovin', you’ll discover that Tarantino still brings a positively wicked sense of ironic counterpoint to his song selections. There’s a reason he has a rep as one of the hippest cats in the movie bidness. As for Sharon and bug-eyed Charlie Manson, whether Tarantino attempts to rewrite history à la Inglourious Basterds will be determined July 26. Unless you're among the fortunate who got to see the premiere at Cannes this afternoon, after which Tarantino and his cast received a six-minute standing ovation.


Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Want to Live? Then Die in L.A.

By Steve Evans

Summer blockbuster season is upon us and I am mostly unimpressed with the cinematic slate. I’ll go see Scorsese’s latest and Tarantino’s, too, but that’s about it. Summer is a time for action films, and for my money, the more violent the better. Many terrific action films have been made over the last half century and you’d best believe I’ve seen ‘em all. The Bond films hold up and, well, Die Hard (1988) is still the gold standard for Christmas movies featuring terrorists and machine guns and exploding helicopters. Yippie-kai-yay, etc.

But now and again I revisit the work of William Friedkin when I want a textbook refresher on how to shoot an action film. His early success, Best Picture winner The French Connection (1971), made a star out of Gene Hackman and delivers what remains one of the great chase sequences in all cinema. I watched it again the other night. Brilliant flick, infused with the influences of the French New Wave. Friedkin’s horror-film follow-up, The Exorcist (1973), never did anything for me except trigger a fit of the giggles. Why that flick scared anyone remains a mystery to this day: “Your mother sucks cocks in hell!” “Oh? Here’s a puke bucket, you little harlot.” Friedkin faltered after that for nearly a decade with several misfires. Then he turned 50, got serious, and directed another masterpiece.

I’m talking about his 1985 thriller To Live and Die in L.A., about a brooding counterfeiter and the secret service agent determined to take him down. This is a damn-near perfect action picture, with credible, well-developed characters performed by a sterling cast that includes Willem Dafoe, William Peterson and John Turturrro in an early role. The action set pieces are many and memorable. There are beautiful babes – the kind you trust and the kind you sleep next to with one eye open. The band Wang Chung delivered their best-ever work for the soundtrack. Almost everyone in the film has a nasty attitude. And what is an action flick without balls-to-the-wall violence? Here the brutality is potent, bloody, abundant and unapologetic. This may be the most nihilistic action movie ever made, outside of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear, which Friedkin himself remade in 1977 as Sorcerer.

Oh. You want a chase sequence in downtown L.A.? Friedkin outdid his own previously best effort in The French Connection. Ask yourself what it would be like to fly down a freeway at 80 mph. Going the wrong way. With cars coming head-on. To Live and Die in L.A. answers that question.

This film exudes effortless style. It’s an outrageously slick piece of entertainment with enough throbbing testosterone to make Big Arnold Schwarzenegger cry like a sissy with skinned knees.

I first saw the picture in a theater 34 years ago. Back then, it blew my mind at the possibilities of action cinema. Leaving the theater, I recall breaking several land speed records driving home, such was my lingering excitement. I am still waiting for someone to surpass the pure adrenaline this film delivers.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Thoughts after a church fire in France

By Steve Evans

Yes, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) was filmed entirely on the RKO Studios backlot. Yes, they actually built the front of the cathedral to scale for the film, which is the essential cinematic version of Victor Hugo's immortal classic -- the novel that is directly responsible for saving the Notre Dame Cathedral in the early 1800s during but one of the many threats to its existence over eight centuries. Hugo's book shamed the French government into restoring the cathedral in the 1830s when it was already almost 500 years old.

Nearly a century later, Lon Chaney gave the title role an admirable whirl as Quasimodo the bell ringer in a 1925 silent film. So did Anthony Quinn in '56 and Anthony Hopkins in '82. But the '39 film is the one that unfailingly transports me to medieval times when life, as Tommy Hobbes liked to say, was nasty, brutish and short.

So I'll revisit this one tonight. Charles Laughton delivers one of the greatest performances in film history. A cast of thousands. The finest production values available at the time. This movie puts the hook in me from the opening credits and orchestral score; I will watch it without interruption until the fade to black. First saw this picture on television as a teenager and wept with joy, such was its impact. Wore out a VHS copy from my late 20s to early 30s. Still have a DVD. Bought a restored print on Blu-ray mere months ago. Lest the point be lost, I love this film. Essential viewing.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Half of the Coen Bros. to Direct Another Macbeth

By Steve Evans

Most intriguing film news of the day... Joel Coen, sans brother Ethan, is set to direct yet another film adaptation of Macbeth. He is also writing the screenplay, again, without his brother. This represents a first in their 35-year collaboration. Two-time Oscar winner Frances McDormand, Joel's wife, is to play Lady Macbeth. Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington is in talks to co-star in an undefined role. Would be interesting if Denzel played Macbeth, as that would represent a refreshing reversal of so many white dudes playing Othello in blackface through the years. Conversely, Denzel playing Macbeth will inevitably raise questions, like, what's a brother doing in 11th century Scotland? That would be in keeping with Coen's Dutch-angle sensibilities. 

Whatever he's up to, Coen will need to jazz it up a bit, because Orson Welles and Roman Polanski, who made their own versions in 1948 and 1971, respectively, will be tough to beat. Yet another version with Michael Fassbender in the title role was released just four years ago.

I mention all this because why Joel Coen would want to make his solo directing debut with a Shakespeare adaptation -- a play that's been filmed more or less definitively many times before -- has got to be one of the great curiosities of the cinema in the last 25 years.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Remembering Kubrick

By Steve Evans

I remember exactly where I was 20 years ago today when I learned that Stanley Kubrick had died. First order of business was to phone in a bogus illness at the office and squander a sick day. I spent the balance of that morning and afternoon watching Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, his four greatest films. Over the remainder of that week I watched the rest of his films, developed a newfound appreciation for the artistry of Barry Lyndon, discovered some interesting symbols and subtext in The Shining, and marveled at how the man managed to make such a sly and gleefully perverse film of Nabokov’s unfilmable novel, Lolita, considering the censorship restrictions of the day. I watched The Killing for the umpteenth time, once again shaking my head at how Tarantino shamelessly lifted the non-linear plot structure and adapted it for use in his film Reservoir Dogs. In-between these screenings, I endured a dial-up Internet connection to glean any information I could find about Kubrick’s swansong, Eyes Wide Shut, which would be released four months after his death. He made only 13 films in a career spanning 45 years, mainly because he spent years making them. The man was meticulous.

The world was a more interesting place when Kubrick was alive, making films and cultivating an air of mystery about his methods. I believed then as now that wherever he was at any given time, he was always the smartest guy in the room. His films positively pulsate with intelligence, with trenchant observations on the human condition. The jackals of bourgeois sensibility often criticized Kubrick for what they perceived as a cold misanthropy in his work. Nonsense. No intelligent man would devote so much time and obsession to the perfection of his life’s work – and then share it with millions – unless he had a passionate concern for the fate of humanity. If there is a connective thread woven throughout his films, it is this: every single one of them follows a protagonist whose fate is impacted by the random insanity of a world beyond his comprehension or control.

Existential fatalism is the dominant theme in all of Kubrick, except one film that turns the idea upside down: A Clockwork Orange. This is the only Kubrick film (and it is his best film) where the antihero gets his life back, albeit through a pitch-black paradox. Here, the film itself is a meditation on free will raging against the forces of fate in a dystopian future where everyone is unpleasant. The protagonist loses his freedom of choice due to government brainwashing only to regain free will through that most ironic of choices, an attempted suicide. “I was cured alright.”

Stanley Kubrick. July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999. Irreplaceable. Sorely missed.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

Bad Cinema for a Happy New Year

By Steve Evans 

It’s something of a tradition for me to start off the first week of the New Year by watching a bad movie. Bad, as in incompetent. Poorly produced. Ineptly acted. Lousy direction. Ridiculous special effects. The idea is my film watching can only improve as the year progresses. Not really. I just have a dangerous and evidently incurable addiction to really dreadful flicks.

So today we’re gonna spin I Eat Your Skin (1964), a longtime fav in the disreputable genre of Le Bad Cinema. As is my nature, I must first share some backstory about this motion picture.

It was made as Voodoo Blood Bath and sat unreleased for seven years until an exhibitor, the aptly named Jerry Gross, bought the picture for pennies on the dollar to use as a double feature with his movie I Drink Your Blood. To enhance the alliterative exploitation effect, Voodoo Blood Bath was retitled I Eat Your Skin.

No skin is actually eaten.

Our story: A sexist-pig novelist, his publicist and a shrill woman with a powerful thirst for cocktails decide to visit a mysterious island for research on a new book. The island is home to a sketchy scientist, his smoking-hot daughter and assorted natives who practice voodoo rituals. Eventually zombies show up with makeup that resembles fried eggs for eyes. I am not making this up. On-screen talent includes nobody you ever heard of, which in a strange way makes the story more involving since there are zero celebrity distractions.

The movie opens at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach – the same hotel used in early scenes for the James Bond adventure Goldfinger, also made that year. There all similarities end, as I Eat Your Skin flies off the rails almost immediately. It is wildly entertaining and will leave you incredulous. A full 80 minutes and 47 seconds of WTF?

Directed by the incomparable Del Tenney, who was a busy man in the early 1960s. The same year he wrapped up I Eat Your Skin, Tenney also managed to complete The Horror of Party Beach, which is likewise essential viewing if you enjoy movies about bikers, beach babes in bikinis, surf rock and rubbery bug-eyed monsters with bratwursts for teeth.

As a public service, a full and uncut copy of I Eat Your Skin is available below. Learn to see the worst films; they are often sublime.


Cinema Uprising Copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.