Jackie Brown (1997)

 "I think it's a gun pressed against your dick..."

It's somewhat embarrasing that there are any Quentin Tarantino films I haven't seen, quite frankly, This is the earliest, and I'm so glad I crossed it offmy list. I mean, it's not even one of the more famous Tarantino films, but that matters not. It's a straightforward, yet also complex, heist movie with few bells and whistles of Tarantino's usual structural stuff. But it's interesting to see him restraining himself. This film is superb.

The cast is, of course, magnificent. Pam Grier stars, wonderfully, in a film that is not a B movie, and shoes us her sheer class in a highlight of her career. Given a first class film, she shines. If only she'd been given more. She's a forty-something black woman starring in a big Hollywood movie, too. That's embarrassingly rare, and I bet Miramax (friends of a rapist) had representations. I'm sure any one- or two-fingered gesture would fit nicely here.

Yet Samuel L. Jackson is also oiutstanding as Ordell, a clever, gun-running chap whose best line (about guns and killing, of course) cannot be used at the top of this blog post because swear words are a thing to right wing wankers, who nevertheless won't censor said obscenity because it's a Brit thing.

Roberty De Biro is in this, giving a restrained yet awesome performance. The plot is superb, as is the dialogue. It's a noice '90s time capsule in that Jackie is poor and must subsist on recorfds, not CDs- that's really dated.

Sid Haig is there, too, as the judge. This is a superb henist movie, yet I'm sure thrre are all sorts of directorial bits...?

Batman: The Spell of Tut & Tut’s Case Is Shut

The Spell of Tut

“Gosh, Batman! What are they dressed like that for?”

After a strangely underwhelming pre-titles it's time to jump with joy- King Tut, the first and still the bst original villain created for this series, is back. Not only does the wonderful Victor Buono chew the scenery as magnificently as ever but his, ahem, "Chief Apothecary" is none other than the splendid, and now sadly departed, Sid Haig- who, at this point, is a mere stripling in his twenties, a scary thought. With baddies like this, frankly, we simply don't care how unconvincing and obviously plastic the crocodiles are. Nor do we care about the so-so quality of the script; some performers elevate material just by being there.

Not only that, but we get the second instance of the Dynamic Duo encountering celebrities in a window while climbing, as you do. This time it's the Green Hornet and Kato, in a splendidly bizarre cameo. Yep; this episode features both Sid Haig and Bruce Lee.

The plot is nonsense, of course- scarabs in amber being revived to make a mesmerising liquid- but seeing Tut and his underlings performing an operation in surgeons' scrubs is just so damn fun and Buono, quite rightly, is hamming it up so much more. This is great.


Tut’s Case Is Shut

“On your knees, Helot!”

“You got the wrong Helot.”

“On your knees anyway!”

I've just noticed- the signature onomatopaeic fighty words are now on separate frames. Has this been the case from the start of the new season?

This episode simply carries on the fun. Never mind the rubbishness of the cliffhanger resolution; we get a mesmerised Chief O'Hara performing acrobatic feats on a flagpole several stories up while singing "Molly Malone". We get mesmerised acting from Adam West, with arms held out in front like a zombie. There is no way you can not love this.

We even end with a hilarious look at the camera by Commissioner Gordon. Batman episodes simply don't get any more Batman than this one. Brilliant.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

"You're my favourite person. But every so often you can be a real c***."

And so we come to the second part, with Elle unexpectedly killing Budd with a hidden black mamba while the Bride plucks out Elle's remaining eye, leaving her blind and thrashing around.

Only Bill is left. But the story is fleshed out, with a monochrome flashback to the wedding and an extended heart to heat between our two protagonists at the end, with Bill's monologue about Superman finally giving us some proper Tarantino dialogue but also allowing the film to end with fully explored characterisation. There's plenty of aestheticised violence in this second part but this time around we get the characterisation and backstory. We also have a name: er, Beatrix Kiddo.

We also get a proper visual tribute to Chinese martial arts and, it seems, to Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the very silly character of "Gordon" Liu's Pai Mei, the bushy eyebrowed and delightfully rude ancient martial arts master with a beard to marvel at. All scenes featuring him are comedy gold. He's rude, sadistic, bigoted and easily the most likeable character in the film. Oh, and on the subject of cameos we also get Sid Haig as a barman and Samuel L. Jackson as... could it be an older, wiser Jules?

It's a satisfying ending, perhaps more so than expected, and the two parts together make a more balanced and fleshed-out film than the pure fetishised violence of the first half. And the direction, of course, is equally magnificent. I'm so glad I've finally seen this. More Tarantino before too long, methinks.

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

"There's no horror here we don't create ourselves."

Every so often I have to watch a trashy-looking genre film with quirky casting and this Roger Corman-produced piece of '80s sci-fi schlock, featuring the splendid Sid Haig and a pre-Nightmare on Elm Street Robert Englund, seems to fit the bill. The experience has been... interesting.

There's an obvious Alien influence in the bickering, working class crew of an alien spaceship but none of the visual grittiness and the plot, once you get past the awful cliched dialogue, is really rather different. There's a fair bit of world building with humanity enthralled by a mysterious "Master" who eventually even becomes relevant to the plot and it eventually becomes clear, after a series of increasingly gory deaths by '80s special effects including a suspiciously rapey-looking incident including a giant worm, that the planet's monsters are simply the crews' fears made manifest. So far, then predictable.

Then we get the ending, where the film really tries hard to be something more than a B movie by attempting to be all metaphysical and philosophical. It's a good try, it really is, but there's no escaping the fact that this is, well, a B movie, and strictly one for those of us who like that sort of thing.

Foxy Brown (1974)

"You pink-ass corrupt honky judge, take your little wet noodle outta here and if you see a man anywhere send him in because I do need a man."

I've already blogged one Blaxploitation film; why not, I thought, blog another, this time an iconic one that actually stars Pam Grier herself? Well, this is certainly a watchable film and possibly the most '70s thing ever. I mean, Huggy Bear is in it. And it's always good to see Sid Haig.

Foxy is, essentially, setting out to avenge her murdered cop boyfriend armed with no more than a gun, a whole lot of sass and some enormously cliched dialogue. There's not a lot more to it than that but it's enormous fun, and Grier certainly has the charisma. There are car chases, there is action, but it's all about her. And..  that's about all that can be said about the film.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

"Whatever you need to do, you do it. There is no wrong. If someone needs to be killed, you kill 'em. That's the way."

Wow. Who says rock musicians can't direct? This film is awesome: a twist on the Texas Chain Saw Massacre genre with a load of awesome directorial flourishes to keep things not only visually interesting. Not only that, but there's a cult cast led by the extraordinary Sid Haig in a great part as Captain Spaulding. But you know what? It's easy to be cynical about a director casting their spouse but, well, the best and creepiest performance here is from Sheri Moon Zombie and her deeply disturbing giggle.

It's a stroke of genius to have a character like Captain Spaulding, too- funny, charismatic but essentially there as both Greek chorus and light relief. But the film succeeds because of the twisted family of grotesque serial killers at the end of it, anchored by Bill Moseley's terrifying Oris. 

It's a tribute to the film to reflect that the pace is quite slow and there isn't much incident, yet you're too busy admiring the twisted set pieces and directorial flourishes to notice. A short but delightfully disturbing film. I'll most certainly be searching out more stuff from the esteemed Mr Zombie.