Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994).
Monday, while my students were lined up to go out to recess, one of them said, “Miss L, did you know that tomorrow is Fifties Day?”
“Oh, no,” I replied drily. “What ever will I wear?”
Everyone laughed. They all got the joke. All of them. 100% of children age 8-9 years old recognize that E parties like it’s 1959. Tell A Friend.
So … die?
Found all kinds of claimed “sources” for this picture in various places on the internet. I was concerned about accuracy and quickly chased down the leads. This confirms that the picture was taken above the notably unusual Dean’s Office at Los Angeles High, 4650 West Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90019. If I had to guess, I’d say the picture probably was taken during this event, the Xbox 360 “Get Up” tour (but I’m not suggesting the skater in this picture was affiliated with the tour).
The school’s websitehas galleries of pictures with identical architecture and painting to the one in the sk8 or die shot, with the same brick pattern and lettering typeface, along with pictures featuring the distinctive slanted roof of the office. So I’m positive. I’m also unbelievably full of myself about finding the school quickly and correctly. Like, so arrogant right now.
Booyakasha. Research, motherfuckers; can you do it??
He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two.
(Charles Dickens. Nicholas Nickleby.)
“The Movie That Knows No Limits of Evil!”
Christina Lindberg as Frigga in They Call Her One-Eye, aka Thriller — En Grym Film, aka Thriller — A Cruel Picture, aka Hooker’s Revenge (Bo Arne Vibenius, 1974).
Sorry for the complete lack of posts since New Year’s Eve but the site experienced a really, really dramatic spike in viewers and I couldn’t handle it, so I hid. (Master strategist and most put together chick on the block? This guy right here. Hope you can handle it.) I’ve talked myself in to relaxing about it and, now that the surge has leveled off, I feel more like I can get back in to the swing of things.
So Happy New Year, dudes!
In Thriller, a mute young woman is sexually assaulted and forcibly addicted to heroin, for which she is then somewhat-consensually but very miserably pimped out in order to maintain the unwitting habit.
Now they call her One-Eye.
Sally, Frigga’s only friend, brings Frigga the news that her pimp has written a letter to her parents purporting to be from her, detailing her new life and ending with the warning that she never wants to see them again. Devastated, they commit suicide.
Despite the battering the world has given her, or more likely because of it, Frigga finds secret reserves of strength in herself. Her disgust with the circumstances of her life begins to be directed not at herself, but at those responsible for her misery.
Having secretly saved some money and been taking self-defense classes, Frigga next scrounges up some weapons and musters her will to not just survive, but kick some ass.
(She also stops off to ditch the pink eyepatch and pick up a black one, black being the universal color of badass vengeance. Pink, not so much.) All her accoutrements in place, the newborn Angel of Death determines to take her revenge against her abusive captors.
The best and most widely used English-language tagline for the movie was, “The Film That Knows No Limits of Evil!” Director Bo Arne Vibenius’s previous outing had been an overlooked children’s film into which he’d poured a great deal of craft and creativity.
Though it received fair critical acclaim, audiences’ universal panning of that film, Hur Marie träffade Fredrik/How Marie Met Fredrik (1969), lead Vibenius to vow that his next movie would be the lowest, nastiest, exploit-iest, most audience-tuned picture possible: something grotesque and titillating that would appeal to the masses while simultaneously disgusting and punishing them.
In fact, he supposedly said specifically, “I’m going to make a super commercial, piece-of-shit movie.”
Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
That’s a severed head below, in case you thought it wasn’t.
Vibenius directed Thriller under the name Alex Fridolinski. The film was billed outside of Sweden as “The first film to be banned in Sweden!” which is several kinds of inaccurate but served to make countries who thought of Sweden as a sexually liberated place flock to the picture. In point of fact, the first banned film in Sweden was Trädgårdsmästaren/The Gardener (Victor Sjöström, 1912), and the second was Det Händer I Natt/It happens tonight (Arne Ragnborn, 1957).
Thriller has had an obvious influence on film culture, and many cinephiles in the business today cite the way in which the direction soars above its middling materal (rape-revenge structure being very familiar in the 70’s exploitation film genre) as an explanation for its rise to gem in the field status.
A little word-of-mouth from this guy never brought anybody down, either. So gird your loins, grab your tissues and barf bag, and give it a spin — and bid a fond farewell to Dickens December.
(many, many thanks to the wonderful cinezilla for a majority of the screencaps and the backstory on Vibenius’s bitterness after How Marie Met Fredrik — if you love movies, do check out his artful and brilliant blog.)
via.
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994.)
Photographed by entelpelente on the flickr.
But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
(Kerouac, Jack. On the Road, 1951.)
Won’t you please go crazy just once in a while.
My daughter and I went to the downtown branch of our public library today, to which I had not been in epochs. A year, at least.
We went a little crazy.
Photographed by realbelgianwaffles on the flickr.
I had to buy two more bags so we could carry the books, and my bag ripped so we were drag-assing to the car, both of us weighted down by several bags each. The trunk was stuck, and propping the ripped bag on my hip in order to try and really pull up on the lid sent half the books sliding like an avalanche over my shoulder because of the arch my body was in, where they tumbled behind me to the ground and christ-knows-why cartwheeled in to the smack middle of the drive. Why not?
Kidlet instinctively darted out to retrieve them, so I was in a panic shouting “No!”, throwing my head around to look for cars and warning her, “Get back in position!,” “position” being facing her door, with both hands on the car — yes, I know it is a seemingly fascist thing to teach a child to memorize, but it keeps her semi-secure while I try to juggle crap with my hands full in a parking lot. Today was a case in point. As soon as I’d managed to fumble the keyfob into unlock, I told her to get in the car, and as soon as her car door closed, let out a very heartfelt, “Fucking fuck!” Then I picked up the books. Twist ending!
the kitty nightlight keeps it on-theme.
If you think all of that’s chaotic, farcical, and vulgar, you should have seen us in the library. Think, “Jackie Chan meets the Three Stooges, with special guest writer Quentin Tarantino.”
A portion of my haul is above. Snagged a few more gems for the Wonder Woman research and a couple Hammett novels for funsies; also Far Arden and a new book by Elizabeth Kostova, who wrote The Historian (a yearly read). I almost picked up Embroideries but I’ve almost literally just reread Persepolis and I decided to wait until next time. Does anyone else find to your disappointment that when you read a great deal of someone else’s art and writing, it begins to accidentally spill over in to your own, or am I the only hack?
Anyway, it’s all at your Local Library!
Also, I wanted to show off this improvised bookcover for Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour. My California copy has gone saucily topless up front for around a half a decade (thus prompting the purchase of my much more gently used Oregon copy) and I could brook no more. I decided that, after eighteen years, I no longer really needed the Kirkus and New York Times, etc, reviews at the front telling me the book was worth a look, and, knowing the dedication already — to Stan Rice, her husband —, I flipped to the first page and started duct-taping the front ten-odd junk pages together. This made a stiff enough cover so that, when I lie in bed curled on my side to read, the force of my hand holding the thicker part of the book does not wear and worry and rip away at the front any longer, saving the book from further separating from the spine.
I’m pretty proud of my shitty repair job. The spine itself has always been fine, so it as not as though the book would be anonymous when shelved or sidewise-viewed, the only ways it would matter in a search, but I wrote “The Witching Hour” and “Anne Rice” on the duct-tape cover anyway because it felt right.
At first I was totally dismayed and worried when I heard there’d been slated a new movie adaptation of The Three Musketeers because Dumas’ adventure books were such good friends to me for so many years (this clearly merits a re-read actually; it’s been too long). But then I saw that Paul W.S. Anderson was at the helm and my sphincter relaxed.
The lovely and talented Ms. Milla J.
Then I saw Milla Jovovich was in it — not because Anderson is her husband but because she is amazing and anyone who says otherwise can shut their piehole or I’ll shut it for them — and I did backflips. I’m going to dwell on this a lot until its release. For today, a quick look at the cast:
Lerman is on the left doing delightful jazz hands.
Logan Lerman (D’Artagnan) was most recently in the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Two-bit Monkeyshines and the Missing Noxzema Pad as the titular Percy Jackson; the most surprising credit on his absolutely stacked resume is The Butterfly Effect. No one gives that movie enough credit. Pretend Hashton Euchre is someone else (as I have just done) and that movie is strikingly awesome. Anyway, I think this kid looks too young to play the dashing Gascon protagonist and I fear he was chosen to appeal to the tween demographic, which has even more worrisome ramifications because a faithful adaptation of the first book can only result in a PG-13 rating at best unless some Disney-style plot-monkeying has been done, but I look forward with cautious optimism to being proven wrong on all counts. Paul W.S. Anderson wouldn’t do me like that. We go back to Event Horizon, man: it’s us to the mortuary.
Wildly underrated darling Paul Dano. What a talent.
If I had been the casting director, D’Artagnan would be played by: Paul Dano or Emile Hirsch. Guys who’ve proven their chops in challenging, dramatic, serious roles (Little Miss Sunshine and Speed Racer, respectively) — just kidding, obviously in Hirsch’s case I am referring to the film adaptation of Into the Wild — and can handle the emotional demands of the part. Again, I would hope with all my heart that Logan Lerman proves me wrong. Good luck, kiddo: I really am pulling for you.
Very talented upcoming actor James Corden. Glad to see him cast in a big part, hope it is worthy of him.
James Corden will play D’Artagnan’s servant, Planchet. That he is billed up in the top 10 is weird to me, so they must have beefed up his part. The casting directors have gone the portly-servant-to-the-handsome-gentleman route with their choice, a trope so cliched as to almost be commedia dell’arte in its typecasting, but not quite that creative; just predictable. However, that is not the kid’s fault and I give James Corden props for having appeared on an episode of Dr. Who. I look forward to seeing what he brings to his perhaps-more-significant-than-normal portrayal of Planchet. (edit: Supafly Gordon Fraser has the skinny on the bigness of Mr. Corden; read all about his popularity in the UK in the comments — mystery solved to a satisfying and encouraging conclusion!)
I would have liked to have seen: a real skinny, fair, left-field, oddball hottie like Jesse Tyler Ferguson or Mike White.
Ray Stevenson is Porthos. He’s been working like a madman lately and clearly has the skillz to pay the billz, Big Budget Picture-wise: Cirque Du Freak, The Book of Eli, The Other Guys, and the forthcoming Thor are all recent credits — dude knows his way around an action flick, for sure. All in all, I approve. He is an Irish boy, so my hands are tied. It is a foregone conclusion that I will adore him. Porthos is the party guy of the Musketeers, so it’s also nice to see that Mr. Stevenson will get to play against type and not have to be strictly the big toughie, but get to enjoy a little wine, women, and song along with his usual dealing-out of ass-kickings.
My ideal casting: Donal Logue. Duh.
Matthew Macfayden has been cast as Athos. Most recently Mr. Macfayden played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, though his awesomest resume credit is from Grindhouse as “hatchet victim” in the Don’t segment. I wish I could put “hatchet victim” on my resume. Well, on reflection, I suppose not. “Hatchet survivor” is so much more optimistic. Macfayden’s most impressive credit is for the television special Nuremberg: Nazis on Trail, on which he served as the narrator for the episodes on Goering, Hess, and Speer. I admire that.
Athos is supposed to be the oldest of the group and kind of reserved, which works with Mr. Macfayden’s intelligent-but-pinchy face, like he worries a lot about things, but I’m concerned about him being too young and handsome to realistically portray Athos as older than this cast’s Porthos (above). Also, there’s the him-and-Milady thing. Milla is such a badass and so unthinkably beautiful and vital compared to his own type of fitness and vibe, that kind of sinewy, reedy runner build, so if they do any sexytimes flashback I’m concerned it will seem imbalanced. I’m afraid I have to glance askance at this casting and again just hope to be blown away when I see the movie.
I would have chosen: Clive Owen.
Luke Evans is set to portray Aramis, my favorite of the Musketeers. He is very multi-faceted as a character which makes him a satisfying companion to follow when you’re reading the adventures. Aramis is both bookish and restless; a dreamer who also plans; much more religious than the others but also given to double-dealing; patient in allowing his machinations to take shape but simultaneously governed by impulse and wild ambition, which he backs up with intricate, Machiavellian plots that generally succeed. He is somewhat the visionary of the group.
As far as face goes, Mr. Evans looks sensitive but smart enough to accurately portray Aramis, although I’d have preferred to see Cillian Murphy, who could have handled the breezy humor and abrupt mood shifts of Aramis’s temperament, and whose resume could use a famous-good-guy credit after turning in such impressively villainous performances in RedEye and the Nolan Batman films.
Then again, I prefer to see Cillian Murphy in just about anything. Mr. Evans is probably in due to being the sheriff’s henchman in Robin Hood and Apollo in Clash of the Titans, so he will be back in action with Mr. Macfayden. (Did the casting directors go directly to the sets for all these recruitments or is some incestuous, neopotic agency simply teeming with busy bees.)
In a perfect world: Cillian Murphy, as I have made abundantly clear.
Christoph Waltz has got the nod to play Cardinal Richelieu. You know him — Inglorious Basterds, a one mister Herr Landa? Guy spent the last twenty years working his ass off mainly on German TV and has totally earned his day in the sun. Good on him and I think he will bring an appropriately balanced Richelieu to the screen for maybe the first time ever: usually he is portrayed as a straightforward villain. Cardinal Richelieu is a more complex character than that — not as uniquely complex as Rochefort, who in the books eventually becomes friends with the Musketeers many years later, but still less one-dimensional than film adaptations traditionally demonstrate — and I hope for good things from Mr. Waltz.
I would have gone with: meh. I am happy with Christoph Waltz in this role. Richelieu is not the main or most intriguing villain of the piece and I like a capable, team player like Waltz in the part because I would hate to see him pull a Tim Curry-style upstaging of the next character on my list — Milady de Winter.
Milla for High Times, October 1994, related to her appearance in Linkletter’s Dazed and Confused.
Milla Jovovich plays Milady. Yes.
That’s all I have to say about the casting choice. Yes. Yes. I love her almost beyond expression, like admire her and genuinely wish good things for her despite having never met her but not in a crazy way, and I have seen all of her movies so many times over, particularly The Messenger: Joan of Arc — and now she is portraying one of my favorite characters from literature, my darling Milady de Winter? YES. Yes. I want to see this movie YESTERDAY.
I would have picked: OBVIOUSLY MILLA. She should just play all the parts and then go on tour with her live, one-man Three Musketeers and I will go to every show.
They’ve cast Mads Mikkelsen as the V.I.P. villain-cum-henchman Rochefort, seen most recently in Clash of the Titans (Draco) and Casino Royale (Le Cheffre). If this storyline is starting from the popular and most usual point for dramatic adaptations, when D’Artagnan first meets and joins forces with the Musketeers, then Rochefort is supposed to be memorably creepy and a figure of mystery for much of this film. His most overriding characteristic, besides his swordsmanship, is that as a character he is very, very recognizable. Mikkelsen looks great, but I’m not sure he will be creepy enough to believably carry such a stamp, if that makes sense? The very figure of Rochefort is supposed to inspire pervasive dread.
My choice: Crispin Glover, who must surely soon begin to enjoy a renaissance of mainstream key-playing work due to his successful reviews in Alice in Wonderland. He plays a good villain and some time under a sun lamp to gain a proper Gallic bronze would do him good anyway. Plus I think he is hot and I’ve always been a big fan.
Twinkle-Toes P. Banananose, the 4th, has been cast as the Duke of Buckingham. Anyone know anything about this guy? I couldn’t find anything at all on him. Seems he has no career whatsoever and is an utter nobody. What a shame. Moving on.
Alternate casting choice: ANYONE ELSE.
Lovely young Juno Temple (she knows what she has to do to get billed “and talented”) will play Queen Anne of Austria. She was most recently in Dirty Girl, a forthcoming bildungsroman epic of sorts with Milla in it, so I’ll know more about her as soon as it comes out, since, as I mentioned, I have sworn a blood oath of lifelong devotion to Milla Jovovich and would sooner pluck out my eyeballs and eat them than miss one of her movies — but, like I said, it’s not in a crazy way. Or anything. Ms. Temple seems a very young choice for a film that also has the Duke of Buckingham in the cast, because their affair is such a major plot point in the story of D’Artagnan and the Musketeers first collaborating to save the Queen’s honor and defeat Richelieu.
Prediction: the newest incarnation will not feature a Bryan Adams song.
Those who know only the Disney version will not be familiar with this twist — I know, how shocking that Disney whitewashed and played fast and loose with an adaptation of a literary classic; I am as surprised and chagrined as you are. What a terrible and uncharacteristic shock this is. Anyway, if the entanglement between Buckingham and Queen Anne starts now … and Twinkle-Toes P. Banananose, the 4th, is scripted to be pawing this poor kid on the screen … I’m going to be pretty skeeved out. I mean, I know she’s 21 and all, but … ew. He’s just so very ew. Showers are free — just go out in the rain, buddy.
My pick: Anne Hathaway. No brainer.
Final picture of Anne Hathaway for, you know … Science.
All in all, I can’t wait for a picture so close to my heart and directed by someone I trust to come out and I’m sorry but you must expect to hear plenty more about it.
This entry was originally posted on December 5, 2009 at 2:42 pm. Captions have been added to some of the photos.
There are many recommendable qualities about what is, to me, the title holder of all-time greatest cheeseball popcorn-flick, writer-director Jack Hill’s masterpiece of the exploitation genre, Switchblade Sisters (1975).
For one thing, the four taglines are as follows:
Dig the poster art (click any of them to blow it up).
The film, which do not think this is the last entry in which I will talk about it, centers on girl gang The Dagger Debs — a sort of ladies auxiliary of their boyfriends’ gang, the Silver Daggers — who later change their name to The Jezebels (some bootlegs of the film still have this as the title) under the advice of their new co-leader.
That bowling alley is rougher than the cantina on Mos Eisley.
Name changes and the new co-leader do not sit well with what is for my money the number one reason with a bullet (or switchblade, if you prefer) to watch this movie:
This flyass bitch right here.
Monica Gayle as “Patch.”
Her name is Patch. Former first lieutenant of the Dagger Debs, Patch came to kick ass and look hot as hell — and she’s all outta blue eyeliner.
You will want to marry her when you watch her snarl and flip and hiss across the screen. It’s wonderful.
Look at that willowy neck and perfectly snide expression. I cannot believe that Monica Gayle did not go on to ridiculous heights of stardom and fame, but at least it ups my chances of running in to her at the grocery.
Quentin Tarantino put up the money through his Rolling Thunder productions company to oversee the recent remaster and distribution of this film in dvd format. He claims it is among his favorite 70’s movies, and QT devotees insist that shades of the plotline, composition, and even characters from Switchblade Sisters can be seen in some of Tarantino’s films.
Note the composition, with organic materials framing the hard face and the strong horizontals in their look-space.
I cannot imagine where they are getting this. Even if he has seen Switchblade Sisters, I doubt it has in any way influenced his own work.*
What am I talking about?, they clearly have patches on different eyes — psh. Not alike at all.
*Obviously that’s in jest … but actually I love the fact that he based the “look” of Elle Driver on Patch. Love it. And then he put Daryl Hannah in the role on top of it?! Winner winner, chicken dinner! It’s like that loquacious elfin genius makes movies purely so I don’t have to. My hat is forever off to him.
addendum 7-2-10: It’s still true. I know it is becoming vogue for some reason to consider QT “tired” or “irrelevant” or “pretentious” or any one of a million labels that float about like baseless ice cubes in the tall glass of haterade Hollywood critics pass around, but I will love him, deeply and without measure or reservation, until the end of time. Call me.
The Thought Experiment 