In
1974, director Tobe Hooper released The
Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a nightmarish and intense horror film about a
family of murderous cannibals that, with a budget of less than $100,000, raked
in over $30 million in the U.S. alone and now stands high on almost any list of
the all-time great horror films. Despite the film’s reputation (and title) its
on-screen violence is actually quite mild – the makers had hoped to secure a PG
rating – with the very effective result of leaving the more brutal aspects of
the film’s violence to the viewer’s imagination. Hooper has long insisted that
the film is a dark comedy, but because of the harrowing intensity that ended up
earning it an R rating it can be hard for some viewers to laugh – except maybe
as a release of tension. The success of the film lead Hooper and his
co-screenwriter to start thinking up a sequel, but it kept getting
back-burnered, shelved, and otherwise delayed until Hooper scrapped his initial
sequel idea, connected with the producers of the notorious Cannon Films, and
brought on a new screenwriter to create The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
For some reason, this film is decidedly less
well-liked by most than the original. Not me though. Situated right in the
middle of the 80s as the slasher (and sequel) era was giving way to some great
horror-comedy (Re-Animator, Evil Dead 2, Return of the Living Dead, etc.) and featuring a promotional poster
that mocked the then-hot film The
Breakfast Club and bore the tagline “After a decade of silence… the buzzz
is back,” the sequel seemed poised to be a worthy box office draw honoring the
original classic. Add to this that it also utilized the talents of screenwriter
L.M. Kit Carson (star of the 60s underground hit David Holman’s Diary, writer/director of the Dennis Hopper
semi-documentary The American Dreamer,
and writer of 1984’s Paris, Texas)
and brought original director Tobe Hooper back into the fold along with actor Jim
Siedow (reprising his role of The Cook from the original film). Carson took the
comedic subtext of Hooper’s earlier film into something that openly satirized
things that Hooper had been implicitly referring to – the Vietnam War (and now,
its aftermath), The Cook ranting about how hard the competition is in
capitalism for a working class chef, and so forth. Both are subtext in the 1974
film but very much on the surface here. And where the performances of the
original strove for documentary-like realism, here the murderous family (plus
Dennis Hopper as the avenging angel Lefty) are portrayed as over-the-top,
seemingly designed solely to bring chuckles – or at least incredulity –
throughout. And then there’s the blood – lots of it. This being the 80s, Hooper
enlisted special effects master Tom Savini to provide the requisite amount of
gore for the film (in addition to subtler work, like the aged face of the 137
year-old Grandpa), distributed in an equally over-the-top show to match the
unhinged performances on tap.
And yet – even with its decidedly unrealistic
tones, even with its over-the-top gore, even with its satirical flair, the film
manages to be nearly as unnerving as the original. And that’s mainly due to our
central character, the radio DJ Stretch (Caroline Williams in a mostly
thankless role). She’s a late-night DJ who unwittingly overhears a murder by
the family and is subsequently stalked by them. Her down-to-earth performance
grounds the film from flying off into becoming the “geek show” that Roger Ebert
(who hated it) saw in it. When she’s in danger, we’re scared. When a couple of
the family members visit her at the radio station, it’s terrifyingly creepy. As
the film progresses and she tracks the family to their underground lair it
becomes something of an amped up remake of the first film’s climactic scenes
(and a flash forward to Rob Zombie’s far less effective homage, House of 1000 Corpses), in which she’s
imprisoned, tormented, and tries to escape while pursued by the chainsaw
wielding killer Leatherface and his deranged brother. It’s easy to laugh it off
if you want, but if you let it the film gets under your skin and becomes nearly
as effective as the blunt nightmare of the original film.
The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre 2
was plagued with issues during its creation – money to make the film ebbed and
flowed with the fortunes of producers Golan and Globus of Cannon Films (a
low-budget studio that’s the subject of the entertaining documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of
Cannon Films). Hooper delivered a film he figured was in line with the
violence quotient of the day but was slapped with an X by the ratings board,
choosing to release the film unrated which lead to its distribution being
severely hampered in the process. So in the same year that the utterly mediocre
Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI
managed to draw nearly 20 million out of the pockets of filmgoers, this one –
with intelligent (if not exactly artistic) ambitions – barely scraped out
enough to make its budget back and make a few extra bucks. Dennis Hopper – right
then in the middle of a run of films that included an Academy Award nomination
for Hoosiers and other honors for his
role in Blue Velvet – is alleged to
have said that this was the worst film he’d ever been in. By contrast, Bill
Moseley, who had the role of Leatherface’s brother Chop-Top, has named the role
as his favorite of his own. I’m definitely in Moseley’s camp – not only does he
turn in a truly effective performance, the film as a whole finds the perfect
pitch of dark humor and nightmarish terror and stands as one of the highlights
of 1980s horror/comedies.
-
Patrick
Brown
Three things to talk about here; the phenomenon
of jazz/rock, the specific jazz subgenre “flute-jazz” and the label CTI. In the
late 60’s and early 70’s the movers and shakers in jazz were trying to keep
their format relevant to the exploding rock audience which was accounting for
stratospheric sales figures and the deification of the stars. The rock audience
was not having bebop, they were demanding jazz be played with electric
instruments and concern itself with topical subject matter. The obvious answer
was “jazz/rock,” a subgenre that rearranged popular music for jazz instruments
and, in turn, resulted in some jazz records selling the kind of numbers
expected from rock releases. Miles Davis is perhaps the most successful merger
of these two genres, actually creating an entirely new music free of the time
constraints of rock and the staid instrumentation and conventions of jazz,
offering an exciting electric amalgam of the two. Hubert Laws did not do what
Miles did, but he did make a few really great jazz/rock albums of which Crying Song is the most far-reaching.
Consisting of five rock covers and two jazz originals, Laws leads his crack
band (with Bob James, George Benson, Grady Tate and Ron Carter among others) on
beautiful flute-led excursions into the near cosmos. “Flute-jazz” is a very
specific and groovy type of music. The flute has both an exciting and calming
quality that can only be described as beatific. Each instrument has a different
effect on the listener, but there is none with the exact mood enhancing
qualities of the flute. In the hands of a master like Hubert Laws, it conveys a
greater spectrum of emotion than almost any other instrument. Crying Song covers the emotional gamut.
The high points of the album are the rock covers
– specifically two Pink Floyd songs, “Crying Song” and “Cymbaline,” a Monkees
song, “Listen To The Band,” a Traffic
song, “Feelin’ Alright,” and The Bee Gees’ “I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You.” Laws
remains true to the basic structures of these songs but adds horns and strings
to lay down a bed for jazz soloing on the melodies. It works beautifully and is
virtually irresistible for rock fans who like jazz. Hearing Pink Floyd’s aching
“Cymbaline” without the cosmic lyrics
fundamentally changes the song, but it does not diminish its beauty in any way.
Laws plays the central theme with the correct tone and precision to please
Floyd fanatics, but he swings in a way jazz aficionados will appreciate.
Alternately, on “Crying Song” from
Pink Floyd’s More soundtrack, he lets
the band run wild in a pretty free-form excursion to the outside.
The label that released this lovely record was
called CTI, standing for Creed
Taylor International. Producer Creed Taylor started his label in 1967 as a
partnership with A&M Records,
but in 1970 broke off on his own and Crying
Song was the first album he released on his new imprint. CTI Records built a reputation as a label
with a specific sound and look. Many people credit (or blame) Creed Taylor and
his chief arranger Don Sebesky for inventing and perfecting what became known as
smooth jazz, however in 1970 when Crying
Song was released it was just cool, mellow flute/jazz with songs that a
rock audience liked and performances a jazz audience could respect. This should
have been and was a very winning formula. CTI forged a reputation for stunningly recorded albums by first rate
players that struck a chord equally with rock and jazz audiences. The covers
were often graced with memorable images by photographer Pete Turner. Even
though I prefer the overall output of labels like Blue Note or Prestige, CTI has a very special place in my heart
and my collection. In fact it is the only label-group that I have segregated
from its genre. At the end of my jazz section of vinyl I have a CTI section because it is so special and
unique. Albums released on CTI have
such a specific set of aesthetic principles at work that they belong in their
own category. When I am in the mood for a certain kind of laid-back
sophistication only CTI will do, and Hubert Laws’ Crying Song is top of the heap.
-
Paul
Epstein
In the early 1970s,
Francis Ford Coppola worked at such a prolific rate that he not only released The
Godfather and The Godfather: Part II within a span of two and a half
years, but also wrote and directed The Conversation in between them. Of
the four films Coppola directed in the 1970s, The Conversation somehow
falls in the shadows of the first two entries in The Godfather series as
well as his sprawling Vietnam War epic, Apocalypse Now. This unfortunate
circumstance results in a lack of awareness and appreciation of one of
Coppola’s strongest works. Over forty years after its release, The
Conversation endures as a minimalist masterpiece of the suspense genre,
contains an unforgettable performance from Gene Hackman, and imparts a lasting
meditation of the consequences of surveillance culture.
Coppola wastes no time
by opening The Conversation in the middle of the film’s central focus: a
discussion between a young woman and man walking around a public square in the
middle of the day in downtown San Francisco. While these two talk Harry Caul, a
surveillance expert, and his associates work clandestinely to record the
discussion despite technical challenges presented by the outdoor setting and
the speakers’ shifting locations. After Caul and his colleagues have finished
taping he returns to his loft workspace to get down to the business of merging
the various tapes of the incomplete recording to yield a master document of the
conversation. While filling in the gaps of the conversation and deciphering the
recording Caul quiets his assistant’s growing curiosity over the conversation’s
content by declaring, “I don’t care what they’re talking about. All I want is a
nice fat recording.” As Caul begins to realize that this recording may carry
significant danger if it falls into the wrong hands, his adherence to this
discipline fades. Together Coppola and Hackman create Harry Caul who, unlike
the protagonists of kindred films like Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up
and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, is not a young, attractive, innocent
bystander. Caul looks all too much like a man who has devoted himself
single-mindedly to the task of listening to others while trying desperately not
to be noticed while he does it. Coppola and Hackman imbue a sense of irony and
humor into the character of Caul and the impotence of his attempts to control
what happens around him. In spite of Caul’s cold professionalism and
preposterous personal life he serves as a very human and sympathetic character
as the mystery of the recording consumes him. Hackman provides the film’s
complex main character but he’s not alone because The Conversation also
features an excellent supporting cast including John Cazale, Terri Garr,
Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Allen Garfield, and Robert
Duvall, who supplies a particularly chilling cameo as the Director.
The Conversation debuted just months before Richard Nixon
resigned from office amid the Watergate scandal and bears some influence from
those events, but the film’s powerful depiction of the perils of surveillance,
not only for a society but also for an individual’s humanity, still functions
as a timely warning today. Through Harry Caul the audience witnesses the true
cost of this kind of surveillance, a cost which resonates deeply with both
Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance programs in 2013 as well as
the FBI’s recent legal tangle with Apple over gaining access to the content of
an iPhone. With The Conversation, Coppola spins fiction from the front
page and creates a beautiful, absorbing, and cautionary tale that speaks
volumes about where unchecked curiosity inevitably takes us.
-
John Parsell
Since drummer Ahmir
“Questlove” Thompson and rapper Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter formed The Roots
nearly thirty years ago while attending Philadelphia’s Creative and Performing
Arts high school, the complicated, symbiotic, and fruitful relationship between
these artists has defined the group’s rise from underground phenomenon to
household name with their current gig as house band on The Tonight Show with
Jimmy Fallon. The tension between the balance of critical and commercial
success flows from the DNA of The Roots and has resulted in the creation of
some of the best hip-hop albums of the last twenty years. The Tipping Point,
their sixth studio album, demonstrates this tension more fully than any other
album in the group’s catalog, reveals a compelling stage of the group’s
evolution, and reflects major upheavals in the music industry circa 2004.
Following the
back-to-back break-out successes of The Roots’ fourth and fifth studio albums
(1999’s Things Fall Apart and 2002’s Phrenology), the group was
well poised to build on this momentum when they released The Tipping Point
in the summer of 2004. Forces both internal and external to the group during
the album’s gestation supplied ample challenges to maintaining this momentum.
Within the group, Questlove represents the aspiration to engage critics and
fellow musicians while Black Thought symbolizes the desire toward moving and
satisfying a popular audience. After the scattered, almost indulgent sprawl of Phrenology
under Questlove’s guidance, The Roots chose to let the pendulum swing into
Black Thought’s domain with The Tipping Point. At the same time,
economic conditions and unprecedented uncertainties within the music industry
caused the collapse of MCA, home to The Roots for their last two albums. The
Roots landed at Interscope, helmed by industry veteran (and current Beats
impresario) Jimmy Iovine, and quickly felt a new sense of obligation to deliver
radio hits. To a degree, Interscope’s pressure to push The Roots into more commercial
territory resulted in an album that upon its release satisfied neither
mainstream hip-hop fans nor long-time fans of the group, but for very different
reasons. The Roots’ relationship with Interscope began and ended with The
Tipping Point and resulted in the group’s subsequent move to their home
since 2006, Def Jam Recordings, under the leadership of none other than Jay-Z.
Despite the conflicting forces present during its development, The Tipping
Point contains some of The Roots’ best studio work, especially the great
one-two punch showcase for Black Thought’s verbal prowess, “Web” and “Boom!”
Also, two of the album’s most enjoyable moments are unlisted, hidden tracks
that play after the final song, including a loose, energetic crew jam “In Love
with the Mic” featuring comedian Dave Chappelle and a cover of “Din Da Da” by
German electronic producer George Kranz.
In Questlove’s memoir Mo’
Meta Blues, while describing the choice to name this album after Malcolm
Gladwell’s book, he admits, “With most of the records, we wanted the titles to
work on three levels: as a reflection of our own career, as a reflection of the
hip-hop scene, and as a reflection of the world at large.” Questlove and
company may not have realized twelve years ago that this title would take on
additional layers of meaning over time. In truth, The Tipping Point is
not as strong as the albums that directly precede or follow it, but it remains
one of The Roots’ most important albums because it supplies a fulcrum within
their catalog by establishing a higher level of production, creating a
stylistic template for their following albums, and hinting at the
social/political statements to come on their next three albums, Game Theory
(2006), Rising Down (2008), and How I Got Over (2010). These albums
form a trilogy documenting the nation’s journey from the lowest moments of
George W. Bush’s second term to the promise of hope signaled by Barack Obama’s
first term and achieve a career high point for the group, which may not have
been possible had The Roots not learned the lessons they did while crafting The
Tipping Point.
-
John
Parsell
