John Wick is how you could do Death Wish. Just instead of his wife and daughter being killed it’s his dog and car.
Very excited about the next two podcasts.
You need to get the winner in on their chosen film’s podcast, I say #specialguest
“It’s Turkish.”
I forgot to mention in my fund drive submission that Mustang is currently on Netflix. It would make my day if someone reading this went and hit that Add to Watch List button.
I can’t wait to listen to this. I desperately need the Death Wishnopsys as some sort of catharsis for this execrable movie.
I would never have even considered watching but for the podcast.
In the theater, I noticed some friends from my block, a couple and their daughter who is friends with my kids. They noticed me as I was ascending the escalator where they have the smaller theaters, smaller screens, for movies such as Death Wish 2018.
The wife called up “Hi Josh! What are you seeing?!”
“I’m seeing Black Panther, again!” I replied, smiling, before skulking out of sight.
Mustang is great!
Kellywand didn’t disappoint with the opsis.
I wish I had thought of execrable. I really like that. Well said.
I usually end up checking out a lot of the movies on the fundraising list that I’m curious about and haven’t seen. I’ll definitely check this one out, especially since @crispywebb seconds your recommendation.
I’ll let you know what I think when I can. Thank you again!
-xtien
“It’s hard to escape the feeling that I’ve failed.”
You guys mention exploitation films a bunch on this episode. I’m curious: do you think there is any redeeming value to the exploitation films of the seventies? In particular, value because of the exploitation aspect rather than in spite of it? Or do you see those films as just dated pieces of trash that we’ve moved past now?
That’s a great question, sinnick. I think those movies only have value as cultural artifacts. As one expression of how 70s filmmaking was experimenting with a willingness to be dark, explicit, and disturbing. The same impulses that gave us French Connection, Midnight Cowboy, Night of the Living Dead, and The Exorcist also gave us I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Death Wish, and those Italian cannibal movies.
It can be instructive to consider what some of those exploitation movies are trying to express. Such as Death Wish’s mistrust of authority as an expression of the reaction to Watergate and Vietnam, or I Spit on Your Grave as a new awareness about the enormity of rape brought about by the feminist movement. They’re both crass and clumsy movies, but I think behind their exploitation, you can see an element of zeitgeist. So I would be more inclined towards the “dated pieces of trash we’ve moved past” part of your question, with the caveat that you can learn a lot by looking through someone’s trash. :)
-Tom
I remember reading about a Japanese director, wish I remembered the name (Seijun Suzuki, maybe?), who made exploitation flicks because they offered fewer restrictions than studio films. As long as they featured X amount of violence and/or nudity, the producers didn’t really care what kind of movies he made. So he produced a library of deeper, more personal exploitation flicks than the majority of the genre’s output.
I think you could say the same for Ken Russell.
Often, where Tom sees trash, I see grit. A lot of great movies were financed as exploitation flicks, from Evil Dead to Henry: Portrait of a serial Killer. '70’s and '80’s exploitation flicks got away with levels of skin and gore and had to rely on practical effects and location shoots to a degree that even indies rarely attempt now. For me, execution’s everything. I don’t get bored watching Pink Flamingos so maybe I can’t be trusted, but exploitation movies tap into mostly the same impulses and audience cravings that all movies try to. Sometimes you just want fries, but you can have really great fries.
Exploitaion movies are…sometimes interesting. Basically you had a demand for product with a few very basic parameters of violence and tits, and people being allowed to do whatever they wanted as long as they were within budget and those parameters of violence and tits.
So sometimes you get your genuine skilled artists working within that framework because of the freedom it allows them - or just because that’s where they get the money. See the previously mentioned Seijun Suzuki, or the early works of David Cronenberg.
The vast majority though, is just product churned out by hacks, sometimes stumbling into an interesting moment or image.
And sometimes there’s the ones where you get something genuinely alien from an outsider artist or madman someone lent a camera to.
There’s way too much interesting stuff for the entire field to be dismissed out of hand, but also way too much reprehensible and boring trash for anyone to be expected to wade into the field unassisted.
I’m particularly fond of an oddball from Japan called The Glamorous Life of Saciko Hanai. It’s definitely exploitation cinema, but it was clearly made by people who cared about the film, enjoyed the process, and were intent on making something truly gonzo.
It ain’t trash.
I’m fine with Coors Lite.
Long way to go. And a long time to get there.
-xtien
How do you podcasters pick your movies (aside from the rule that it must be playing in Germany)? A lot of weeks, you’ve picked films that you must KNOW or at least suspect going in you won’t like. I’m more OK with watching mediocrity like Death Wish and Tomb Raider now that I have MoviePass and a theater a few minutes from me, but it just seems like you guys pass up films more deserving of their own podcast fairly often. For example, a lot of the picks on your annual best-of shows don’t have their own episodes.
Yep. Germany. Sucks, I know. :(
Our goal is usually to see big releases on their opening weekends, but we can’t help but substitute smaller movies when we’re passionate about them (so long as they’re also opening in Germany). Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t realize we’re passionate about them until well after their releases. Besides, hearing @Kelly_Wand synopsize lousy movies will often salvage the experience, at least for me.
But more to the point, when we go to stuff like Death Wish and Tomb Raider, I think we all have a small area of hope somewhere that it might be good…
-Tom
Sometimes they are!
I’d just like to say that I appreciate that you guys go to see the bad ones. Selfishly, it makes for entertaining listening for me :), but I think it’s instructive to watch bad films sometimes.
Yeah, everything Tom and Sinnick said. My being in Germany’s added a lot of annoying kinks to what was already a sometimes challenging format (a movie a week whether it’s summer blockbuster season or Shituary is OG RNG).
But great movies are few and far between anyway. So yeah, I go into every Tomb Raider or Death Wish rooting for it (it only takes one movie to make or end a streak), and whether it sucks or not, I’m hardwired to narratively evaluate everything I read and watch, so even when something’s boring, I’m still studying why it’s boring rather than being bored. It’s a terrible way to live, actually; it’s like having a built-in buffer to enjoyment.
But in all honesty, it’s more interesting to me to sift for the 20-30% of a good movie buried in Death Wish than to take turns agreeing that Lady Bird is well acted. I go where I’m needed, if not sought.