I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #182 - Jeremiah Johnson (1972, dir. Sydney Pollack)

For as many Western films as I have absorbed over the years, there are few that truly capture the beauty and expansiveness that was the uncharted West. Many simply take place in that vaguely “Western”-looking town or settlement we’ve all seen before, with the dirt roads and the hand-painted signs; maybe a saloon is involved where men talk shit to each other and guns are pulled, all in that familiar sepia tone. Don’t get me wrong I love those films, but if you update the clothing a bit and replace the horses with cars, they could take place in the present in literally any old rural area of America. In fact, where I grew up in Dubuque, Iowa there are countless unincorporated towns within a few miles of the city either in Iowa or just across the Mississippi River in Wisconsin that are almost exactly like the average town depicted in a Western film. Maybe not as heavy with the gun violence, but you get my point. These films are Westerns simply because their creators tell us they are.

The 1972 Sydney Pollack film Jeremiah Johnson stands out in that “The West” is more than just a backdrop or locale. Filmed entirely on location in Utah at the insistence of leading man Robert Redford, the film marries the majesty and danger of the mountains with its breathtaking snowy landscapes and intense fight scenes with both man and beast. This duality is used in much the same way Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese’s films might use that of New York City. Pollack utilizes the Rocky Mountain wilderness as if it’s another character unto itself.

Redford plays the titular Johnson, a soldier in mid-1800s America who becomes fed up with the war he’s fighting and decides to leave to become a mountain man in the uncharted mountains of Colorado. While there, he quickly learns what it takes to live among the wilds. The first winter he is there, Johnson almost doesn’t survive. He is clearly a novice in both trapping food and building shelter. While fishing one day, a Crow Indian chief comes upon him and, seeing how helpless he is at catching fish, takes pity on him and leaves him be. This would not be the last that Johnson sees of the Crow. Johnson meets an eccentric mountain man named Bear Claw (Will Heer), nicknamed as such because he is a Grizzly bear hunter who keeps their claws as souvenirs. Bear Claw teaches Johnson the skills he needs to survive in the mountains, with a lesson that includes a face to face encounter with a “grizz.” Eventually, Johnson sets off on his own to put his new skills to the test. Over the next year, he adopts a son whose family has been killed by Indians, and marries a Flathead Indian woman in order to avoid conflict with her tribe. Reluctant at first to having traveling companions, Johnson comes to accept the woman and the boy, and they become a real, loving family. Later, Johnson aids a U.S. cavalry in rescuing a wagon train that’s been buried by snow. In doing so, he leads the cavalry through a Crow sacred burial ground, breaking a tribal taboo. By the time Johnson returns to his cabin, the Crow have murdered both his wife and his adopted son. This sends Johnson on a murderous vendetta, killing all the Crow tribesmen that he comes across and sparking a years-long feud between him and the Crow Indians.

There are other incidents that occur in the film, but that is mostly the gist. There is minimal plot, minimal dialogue and minimal cast. But, like I said, the real thrill of watching this film lies in the locations it was shot in. I remember the first time I saw Jeremiah Johnson, my dad rented it when I was six or seven years old. After that, when I wasn’t begging him to rent it again, I was playing “Jeremiah Johnson” by myself in the woods behind my house. At this point, I lived in a very rural part of New Hampshire and for a time, I was positive that if my parents ever made me mad again, that I was going to disappear into those woods and try to make it on my own just like my new hero. Mostly, the film just made me want to be outside, enjoying what nature had to offer. Now, even as an adult, I often think of Jeremiah Johnson when I am hiking or camping or whatever, especially now that I live near the very mountains that he tried to tame.

But beyond it being a visually stunning film, the story itself is also incredible and based loosely on factual events. It is partly based on the book Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher and partly based on Raymond Thorp and Robert Bunker’s Crow Killer, which is a book about the life of a guy named Liver-Eating Johnson. I’m going to repeat that: Liver-Eating Johnson. If you don’t immediately want to know that guy’s story after hearing his name, then you may not be human. Redford’s performance alone is a reason to see this film. His portrayal of the protagonist as he goes from naïf to expert is both powerful and realistic.

As far as Westerns go, it may not be the best you’ve ever seen. Some parts of it can certainly drag on a bit and the character of Johnson is a little bit underdeveloped, if you ask me. However, I can guarantee that Jeremiah Johnson is one of the most unique Western films you’ve ever seen, and perhaps it will encourage you to get outside and experience nature like it did me all those years ago.

-         Jonathan Eagle

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #177 - The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988, dir. Wes Craven)

Right off the bat, I’d like to say that I really am not a “horror movie-guy.” And all due respect, but if you are one, you know who you are: you can rattle off obscure B-movie horror actors and directors without batting an eye, you talk about things like blood spatter and creature make-up like it’s an artform unto itself and just generally have a real affinity for the horror and slasher genres. That’s not me. I don’t dislike horror movies, I just generally don’t choose to watch them and thus don’t usually have much to say about them. I’m more of a comedy kind of fella. However, like with any genre, I have my handful that I love and repeatedly return to (and many of those are even more comedy than horror, such as Shaun of the Dead or the Evil Dead series). But with Halloween right around the corner, I thought it appropriate to write up a horror film that I do adore.

So I’d like to discuss Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow because I feel that among a seemingly never ending sea of horror films, it stands out as one of the best. Many of the greatest films, horror or otherwise, are often based somewhat in fact. The Serpent and the Rainbow was not necessarily based entirely on fact, but was inspired by the 1985 book of the same name by Harvard research scientist Wade Davis. The book details Davis’ travels to Haiti to investigate a voodoo society that utilizes mysterious drugs that lower a person’s metabolic processes to the point where they appear dead, are buried alive and resurrected later, having been aware of everything they’d been through. Leave it to Wes Craven to turn what is essentially a scientific and fact-based document (albeit a disturbing one) and turn it into one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

In the film, Bill Pullman plays the protagonist Dennis Allen, a Harvard researcher who, like Davis, goes to Haiti to look into these “zombification” drugs in hopes of utilizing their anesthetic qualities. In his investigation Allen, assisted by Dr. Marielle Duchamp (Cathy Tyson), enters deep into the world of the Voodoo religion and black magic. He discovers that the drug he is looking for is the reason behind many people being presumed dead and buried alive. During his investigation he is often thwarted by his main antagonist, one of the most utterly upsetting characters to ever be put on screen, Dargent Peytraud. Peytraud is the head of the Haitian militia group the Tonton Macoute and a powerful Voodoo priest, who arrests, taunts, tortures and frames Dr. Allen for murder in order to protect the secrets of his religion and the zombification drugs. Peytraud is always wearing an eerie toothy grin and can appear in dreams and visions to manipulate people’s minds and nightmares because Wes Craven determined that I don’t need to sleep at night. He uses these powers to his brutally creepy advantage, creating nightmarish and paralyzing trances in various characters.

Much of the entire film seems like it could really happen because, to an extent, some of it did really happen. People were buried alive because of a weird voodoo drug. People do still practice voodoo and black magic. However, the beauty in The Serpent and the Rainbow lies more with Craven’s ability to perfectly marry the realistic with the surrealistic. The film is definitely classic Craven, as it eases between dream and reality much like in A Nightmare on Elm Street. But it differs from much of his other work in that it is deeply rooted in realistic premises. I mean, yes, the film was inspired by real events, but even some of the less plausible scenes in the movie, such as the way Peytraud is able to manipulate nightmares, are shot in such a way that it does not seem farfetched, making The Serpent and the Rainbow essentially the most realistic zombie film there is. And that realism is what makes it a great horror film. I’m confident that even the most steadfast of horror fanatics can’t really argue with that.

So, do me a favor and humor me, scream queens and slasher fiends. If you haven’t already, set some time aside to check out Craven’s film and prepare to lose a couple of nights sleep. And Happy Halloween everyone.

-         Jonathan Eagle

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #174 - Big Trouble In Little China (1986, dir. John Carpenter)

“Like Ol’ Jack always says… What the hell.”

If you are looking for a deep art flick then this is probably the point at which you can stop reading this review. However, while John Carpenter’s 1986 Sci-fi Action thriller is certainly no art film it is one of the most enjoyable films of its niche genre. Starting from a western film style storyline, this film is a mish-mash of genre and style, and then ends up perfectly coalescing into an incredibly fun film. It has an intriguing plot, some killer star power, a stylish look, an amazing score by Carpenter himself (which if you know anything about horror film scores you know this is definitely a plus), and it has just enough of the cheese factor to make it completely enjoyable.

The plot surrounds Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) and Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) as they attempt to rescue Chi’s green-eyed fiancé, Miao Yin, from an evil sorcerer, David Lo Pan (James Hong), who had been cursed to live disembodied until he marries a woman with green eyes. With the help of lawyer Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) and bus driving apprentice sorcerer Egg Shen (Victor Wong) they battle through an array of obstacles in order to try and defeat Pan and rescue Yin, who was kidnapped upon her arrival in San Francisco from China. The film’s narrative is punctuated by battles with ninjas, monsters, gangsters, and an assortment of other nuisances. While it seems like a rather straightforward plot, it’s actually much more complex than I’m making it seem. While it is a pretty simple action film, the way that they splice different supernatural folklore-ish aspects (both rooted in ancient legend and some created for the film itself) creates an amazing narrative backdrop over which the story plays out. One of the most interesting examples of this interweaving/marrying of invented and existing myths is the unnerving concept of the underworld, which is a confusing, topsy-turvy descent into a crazed dimension with all sorts of fascinating elements in story for the characters. All of these Sci-fi and folklore aspects are then driven by the genre conventions of a traditional Western, creating an all-new type of film.

In addition to the complex and killer storyline, the film really plays with a lot of the different genre and gender conventions. Jack is kind of (well - totally) a blowhard, bubbling with massive machismo that doesn’t really do him any favors. He tends to fumble into action late and often slips up when he needs to shine (while this does sometimes work in his favor). So while he is a very traditional western “hero,” he’s much more flawed and human than the John Wayne characters that he was obviously modeled after. Additionally the supporting characters, while they are fairly conventional, also find ways to spin those conventions, and at times turn them on their head.

While there certainly are interesting and compelling aspects of the film, and as someone who tends to overthink even the simplest of entertainment I generally focus on those when writing these reviews, in the end this is simply just an amazingly fun and adventurous ride to take with Carpenter and the cast! I originally watched this film as a part of a film group that I was a member of and ended up falling in love with it, which has happened with a good number of other Carpenter flicks (Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Halloween (1978) being my personal favs). I would say that if you are looking to dig into an interesting thrill ride of an action film and you also enjoy a healthy helping of humor with your action, this is a perfect film for you, and you simply must pick up the especially awesome re-mastered blu-ray release of one of the best films of the genre (all of the genres that it embodies)!

-         Edward Hill