Ian Hunter-Defiance part 1

 Ian Hunter is 83 today...one of the most underrated Greatest R'n'R legends still here...

he just put out a new album out in April, Defiance part 1 (I agree;)

I Hate Hate (my ne faved song;)

more:

Pavlov's Dog

Bed of Roses

https://rocknloadmag.com/news/ian-hunter-defiance-part-1-album-review/

Rolling Thunder (1977)

Rolling Thunder.

USA, 1977.

with: William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones, Linda Haynes, Dabney Coleman, Luke Askew, James Best.

written by Paul Schrader. Re-written by Heywood Gould.

produced by Laurence Gordon.

Directed by John Flynn.

Not to be confused with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. And the doc by Marty Scorsese.

Tarantino had put it on his top ten films list, said is his favorite Revenge flick, he named his distribution company after it. He dedicated a whole chapter in his book, Cinema Speculation to this film (and another one to another John Flynn's classic, The Outfit -1973).

RT was supposed to be a 20th Century Fox release but they were so appalled so they sold it to AIP (American International Pictures). 

It's one of the earliest entries into the "Angry/dissilusioned Vietnam Vet coming home" genre, a gritty revenge film which strikes close to Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill. Schrader disowned the script, which was at the time, a companion piece to Taxi Driver! Travis Bickle even makes a cameo appearance in the original Scharder script, linked to Linda Lovelace...

I saw the film more than 10 years ago, out of the Grindhouse folder of fame, and Tarantino was the biggest advocate and champion of Rolling Thunder, making it more and more known, and made it intriguing to people to search for it and see it. Which brings it to the latest showing, in the Tarantino's surprise film in his guest spot in the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival (his first time there!) just a week ago. https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/cannes-2023-close-your-eyes-quentin-tarantino-at-directors-fortnight

So, it made me yearn to see it again. Und I did ;)

Devane is brilliant, I know him from my childhood when I saw him in Yanks (1981). Loved the guy, deserved a bigger career. Tommy Lee Jones is cool too, but mostly I liked Luke Askew's Automatic Slim (I Know Askew as a baddie I guess from Cool Hand Luke and in my childhood, Walking Tall II).  The film is slow, gritty and seems less exploitation than it was described back in his premiere days, it grew older in a good way. Of course it's not 'the shit" as QT sees it, but it stands Tall on its own. Great title too.

And I just love the opening and closing song, the country elegy "San Antone", sung by Dusty Brooks. I know it from one of my favorite films, obscure and underrated, The Ninth Configuration (1980), directed by George Peter Blatty, based on his novel Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer, Kane. And that's because of Barry De Vorzon, who composed the song and the score for both of these movies. 

Rolling Thunder: 7 out of 10, 3 1/2 out of 5!

                                                           "You learn to love the rope".

Succession (2018-2023)

RIP Succession (HBO)

After 4 intense seasons -actually they could've done in in three...too much repetition of weddings, anniversaries, team buildings, board meetings and corporate and family cliffhangers...

tho I believe it to be one of the most poignant series in recent (and not only) Television series.

         My favourite character was Kendall Roy played with uncanny intensity by Jeremy Strong.

I mean, I went for the series because of Brian Cox (Logan Roy, the Patriarch, and the king of F**k off's) & mostly because of a mention in the HBO documentary House of Hammer, but I got under the spell of the three siblings, intolerable brat Romulus/Rome-Kieran Culkin, vitriolic Shiv Shiobahn-Sarah Snook and Ken-Kendall, the chief conspirator. Also in the shade lures Alan Ruck as the elder Connor Roy. Most shakesperian show there ever was, empahasis on a King Lear riff mixed with poisonous Richard III, some Great Dane Hamlets and all the Tituses, Coriolanus, Yagos and Poloniuses there are. All in the world of mega-media corporate royalty, which means they're worse than murderers & thick as thieves.

Cynicism, black humour and sarcasm galore. A chronicle of our vulgar & tabloid age. An absolute  classic.

The Guardian on the ending of the series, calling it better than Sopranos ending,  and "probably the most feel-bad ending in TV history".

Sisu (2022)

Finnish director (& writer) Jalmari Helander did Rare Exports (2010, on my top of 2011 & here), based on his 2003 short film and the high-concept action Big Game (2014). Took him a while to do his third feature, Sisu (2022), his best to date. Sisu means in Finnish a form of crazy courage & determination against all odds. 

The main character is inspired by a real sniper from the "Winter War" in WW2, Simo Häyhä, aka The White Death. It's set in Lapland in 1944, and what better villains than the Nazis? It starts with a lonely man discovering the mother lode into the wilderness (the Ecstasy of Gold), like in the vignette of Coen's bros. 2018's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs with the Gold prospector played by a scrubby Tom Waits. Then he starts a journey western style until he meets the Nazis, here a convoy of bad, bad Nazis retreating (Sven Hassel's style). Nazis in Nordic cultish films were seen in Dead Snow and its sequel by Tommy Wirkola, but those were (Norwegian) Nazi zombies, and in Anders Banke's Frostbitten (Sweedish vampires nazis). 

Sisu premiered in Toronto Film Festival last Fall on Midnight Madness and picked by Lionsgate -US/ Sony (intl.) for distribution (Intercomfilm in Romania). Even though the film can now be found on the torrent sites I strongly advice those in for the ride to go and watch it on the BIG screen, it's absolutely worthy, due to the great cinematic compositions in widescreen by Kjell Lagerroos (2.39.1), glorious colors, the sound design, music (could've gone with a song on the End Credits-a bit of Morricone/Leone homage done a la Hans Zimmer in Broken Arrow) and spellbinding landscapes. 

Finn Jorma Tomilla is Aatami Korpi, surnamed by the Russians Koschei-"the immortal" . Tomilla was in Rare Exports the father hunter alongside his son, Onni Tomilla, who was in Big Game and here is the tank driver, Schutze. Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie (Headhunters, Max Manus, The Trip) is the very bad baddie, SS officer Bruno Helldorf, he reminded me of a cool younger Mads Mikkelsen, but he probably fares better than MM in the upcoming Indiana Jones V-th chapter. 

Korpi is like Rambo in the 1st film, First Blood, and like Mad Max ( a subplot is similar to Mad Max: Fury Road) and The Man with No Name. Surely a lot of spaghetti westerns went into the mix. Helander brings also John Woo into the inspiration for the film. 

The action sequences could be from Raiders and Indy 3 (the tank and under the car stunts) up to James Bond-esqe exploits (mostly the plane sequence).

People compare this with John Wick but there is no resemblances, the dog thing was part of Mad Max 2 and so many films way before the Keanu franchise. First Blood is the main ingredient here. Also Inglorious Basterds comes to mind, especially for the structure and lettering of the Seven Chapters (which are in fact classic 60's-70's film lettering).

But most of all the coolness comes from the fact it's Finnish (though I would've loved the nazis to speak German and not English...:( and to cut to the last scene before any lines...much better than any recent fare of this type. I hope Helander will keep on making his films and not become some gun-for-hire in the Hollywood up-and-down hills...So far it looks like it might be another Sisu film or maybe announced and postponed Jerry and Ms. Universe.

                                                                   The Red band trailer!

Check it out and see first if it's your kind of film ride, cos it's hyperviolent and kinda doomy/gloomy in its whole pulpy construction. With a lot of Finnish black humor. Perkele!

3 1/2 out of 5, 7 out of 10!

4 awards at Sitges Film Festival 2022, best film, best actor, cinematography and music !