Volume 2, Issue 14 June 22 - July 5, 2000

I hear this cat's one bad muthaf ... Shut your mouth. I'm talking about Shaft. We can dig it.

So goes the Shaft theme song and so goes the new version of the "black dick who's a sex machine with all the chicks." Sure he's a cop now and a multimillion-dollar paid actor not private eye Richard Roundtree slogging it out for $13,000, but the movie is bad none the less. And all this from a guy who definitely went in hoping it would suck. After all, they were messing with the grand-pimp-daddy of all blaxploitation films. (Blaxploitation, by the way, is a word not without controversy so I'll use it this once and then let it rest.)

When the original Shaft premiered, Roundtree, as a black hero, was a rare species indeed. In an interview a few days ago, Samuel L. Jackson spoke of Sidney Poitier as a great actor but never the hero like Clint or Brando. It was Roundtree who broke that ground.

But the movie was more than just "black actor makes it." It was a good old-fashioned, bad-assed, private eye flick that also happened to be layered with subtle and not-so-subtle social commentary, especially considering the year it was released: 1971. The first film was heavily laced with black/white/cop interplay. There was also some interracial intercourse, a gay man, black vs. black violence, a black revolutionary movement, and threats of racial clashes. All in all, not bad for a little private eye flick.

I never worried that the bad-assed private eye thing would get lost: just looking at the black leather Armani clothes was a dead giveaway that they weren't going to let Shaft go soft. It was the commentary that I most feared would be lost in the translation to $40 million blockbuster. Anyone with cash can get Armani; it takes a little effort to write a good script.

Happily, the commentary does make an appearance. No, the script isn't excellent but it is very good. In one of the movie's best lines, Jackson complains to Roundtree about the force and how he was "too black for them and too blue" for all of his black friends. This is right out of the original. However, the new Shaft leaves much of the broad social commentary out and sticks mainly to the black/white interaction. It also leaves out the sex, which is unfortunate. I mean, come on, his name is Shaft. The violence, on the other hand, is well represented.

The acting is, on the whole, quite good. Jackson is in his element and I'm not sure there's better acting to be had when it comes to being cool. Okay, maybe Fishburne, but it's close. Christian Bale continues to be the best American dickhead on screen: especially considering he's Welsh. Vanessa Williams, Dan Hedaya, et. al. give solid performances in the supporting roles. The film manages to keep some of the noir necessary for a good P.I. film even as it reaches into the action genre. The action sequences are well-filmed in that they feel as if they actually could have happened. Toni Collette is fantastic, but I'm hoping to see her in a film soon where she can actually smile once in while.

One thing I am stuck on with the film is the vigilante nature of it all. Without giving much away, the ending of the movie is unnecessary and the new Shaft lacks the social responsibility that the old Shaft had. Roundtree says to Jackson, "You're too hot." And it's true. The real John Shaft was always calm and cool. He was the "cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about" after all.

By the way, look far all sorts of great shout outs to the original movie. Roundtree, of course, gets some screen time as the new Shaft's uncle. Isaac Hayes is back with his Oscar winning: the first ever by a black composer: theme song. I was seriously hoping for Isaac Hayes to show up in the film, but if he did, I missed him. The Lenox Lounge, a famous Harlem bar, makes an appearance, as does Gordon Parks, who directed the first film. Look for him as the white haired guy with the mustache when Shaft enters the Lenox. Shaft's original partner of sorts, Ben, also makes a very brief cameo. When Shaft comes back to the precinct in one pivotal scene, the whole force applauds him. Behind the main desk is one guy that the camera stays on for just a bit longer then all of the rest. That's him. Sadly, there's no Antonio Fargas, but a cameo by Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor makes up for it somewhat. There's even a bit of a Dirty Harry shout out. In one scene Jackson throws his badge and it sticks in the wall behind a judge. I couldn't help but think of Clint. "Here's a seven-sided suppository." "What'd you say Callahan?" "I said stick it in your [shut your mouth: Ed.]." B+

Rated: PG-13

Directed by Robert Iscove

Starring Freddie Prinze, Jr., Claire Forlani, Jason Biggs, and Amanda Detmer

When Harry met Sally ... oh, I'm sorry, I mean when Ryan (Prinze) met Jennifer (Forlani), they were 12 and 14 respectively. Ryan was on his first airplane ride alone, and Jennifer was seated next to him, chatting amicably about getting her first period that very day. The two proceed to have an entirely unrealistic conversation about marriage and divorce that sounds too grownup for most 30 year olds, much less a pair of preadolescent twirps. Jennifer calls Ryan ugly, and the scene cuts to high school, where Jennifer is the homecoming queen and Ryan is the football mascot. They have another awkward and unrealistic conversation, this time about commitment. Jennifer calls Ryan stupid, and the scene cuts to college, where both are attending Berkeley. You'd think, after the first two talks, that Ryan would run away, But he doesn't, probably because Jennifer is really hot (she looks like a sultry Calista Flockhart) and Ryan is really hot (he looks like, well, Freddie Prinze, Jr., with glasses on) and this is a movie about opposites attracting. Or, as the desperate movie poster screams: Opposites Attack! The desperate movie poster also says: Warning! Sex Changes Everything!

Warning! This movie contains very, very little sex, and thus, nothing changes. The characters don't change. Oh, sure, they make long, touching, staged speaches about how they're going to be different people from now on and how they're going to be true to themselves and ... oh no, my headache's coming back. Anyway, they make a lot of speeches in improbable and dramatic fashion but each actor invests their character with the depth of a tuna can, so who could tell the difference. Ryan is a math nerd, and a math nerd he remains to the final frame. Jennifer is a freewheeling and brutally honest trollop, and a freewheeling, brutally honest trollop she remains to the final frame. Supporting characters are goofy, and goofy they remain ... you get the point.

Since everyone gets the point by the second minute of the picture, the movie is less about Ryan and Jennifer finally rounding third base, and more about how INCREDIBLY UNREALISTIC a group of film makers can make a relationship seem. About halfway through, there's a scene where Ryan and Jennifer LINE DANCE to FATBOY SLIM while the club shoots SOAP FOAM at them. WHAT??? I have seen people with brains destroyed by powerful drugs who wouldn't be able to believe that scene. I mean, this wasn't just a little Electric Slide line dance here, this was a whole Gap ad of complicated moves by DANCERS in SAN FRANCISCO (arrrrrgh the pain). I've been to San Francisco. People in San Francisco are hip, they're savvy, they're cool, they do NOT line dance to techno music. Even cowboys slamming back longnecks at the Grizzly Rose wouldn't try to line dance to Fatboy Slim.

And from there, it gets only more impossible. Look, guys, if you knew a girl who looked like Claire Forlani, refused to wear a bra, talked in a soft voice, and you were single, what would you do? Even if you were gay you'd at least have the common decency to feel her up, right? And girls, if you run into a tall dark and hansome man with baby doe eyes and strong feelings about sexual commitment, and he has no problem opening up and communicating about deep, emotional topics, what would you do? That's right: break out the handcuffs and stilletos and whip him into submission. That's what boys and girls do, especially young, attractive, horny, single ones. Calling this movie "Boys and Girls" is like taking "Shaft" and renaming it "Nice White People."

The director was obviously trying to get the audience cry at the end of this movie, and he succeeded. I cried. I cried bitter tears of pain. D

"If you want to make it in independent film, you have to be a renaissance man." So says Greg Harrison, the director (and writer É and editor) of "Groove," a film about the events at a rave in San Francisco. "To get anything done, you have to be tenacious. You have to stick to your vision, know your plan, and know your material inside and out. Too many independent writers and directors think that because they're on the artistic side, they don't have to know the business side."

It's somewhat disconcerting to hear talk about business from a young guy who just made a movie about sex, drugs, and techno. "Groove" is a freewheeling film that follows the adventures of several party kids trying to make it through the night without overdosing or getting busted by the cops. Then again, "Groove" has national distribution. Maybe there is something to this whole business end of filmmaking.

"We finished the movie three days before Sundance, and rushed the print to the festival before anyone could see it. It premiered, and the next thing I knew we had offers from four different studios. We were up until 4 a.m. discussing contracts."

Harrison is particularly proud that he got his distribution without giving up any of the rights to the movie or the soundtrack (which he later sold to Warner Brothers). In his own words, Sundance was "an independent filmmaker's dream come true" for himself and his team.

It all started when Harrison moved to San Francisco, where he said he "found creative energy." "Groove" began as a very personal project, an attempt for Harrison to describe what the rave scene meant to him. "I didn't want to say, 'this is what a rave is,' or define it. I just wanted to be as honest and personal as I could, and try to capture the ethos, the DJ culture, the vibe between the crowd and the DJ booth : the pure energy of people having a group peak experience."

To do so, Harrison relied first and foremost upon his expertise as an editor. He brought the music into the project at a very early stage, and even had specific tracks in mind while writing certain scenes. "Most of the time, the music is laid in last. With this movie, I laid the music in at the same time as the video. That was important because I wanted the movie to be more than just an authentic picture of a rave. I wanted each track and each scene to support the emotional content of the film."

He had CDs burned for his actors (many of whom were first-timers), so that they could understand the breaks and beats of each tempo as fully as Harrison. This tight weaving with the music shows in the movie. Scenes are cut and scratched to fit the music É in fact, Harrison comes across as more of a DJ himself than a film director. They say that good editing should be invisible, and Harrison does a remarkable job of hiding his electric cuts in the tempo of the soundtrack.

"My knowledge of editing definitely helped streamline the whole process," he said. "I would definitely recommend that people interested in directing start out as editors. You get to work with directors and see the finished product, then try to put it together as a whole. The nice part is, when you're the director, and you're sitting at the machine wishing you had a close-up shot of the girl turning her head just so É you can go get that shot."

Harrison plans to stay independent and work out of San Francisco. Although he admits (as a businessman) that the distribution infrastructure makes working with Hollywood unavoidable, he claims that living outside the loop helps tremendously. "Inspiration is more likely to happen outside of Hollywood. If you live and base yourself somewhere else, the noise quiets down, and you can start to hear your own voice."

Not only your own voice, but your own groove.

"Groove" opens up at Landmark's Mayan on June 30.

The two works by May Deren were a draw. "Meshes in the Afternoon" was good but the "The Very Eye of Night" was not so good. "Meshes" was made in 1943 and was interesting as much for its historic value as for its artistic value. "Eye" was just a tad too long for the subject matter.

The Brakhage works were the most difficult by far but were also great art. "Scenes from Under Childhood, Part One" split the audience with some getting up and leaving or laughing and the rest digging deep to try to make sense of Brakhage's vision. "Stately Mansions Did Decree" was a Pollock painting come to life and was worthy of any rave or '60's bash.

The two films by Bruce Conner were quite good. They were filled with humor and meaning and, being the "father of the music video," music. "Breakaway" was interesting for its stylized editing and when the film ends and then proceeds to play backwards, we catch a glimpse at Connor's 'deconstructing' of film and music. "America is Waiting" was made in collaboration with David Byrne and Brian Eno. The audience responded to this film probably more than all the others and I found myself wishing it had been longer.

"Scorpio Rising" by Keneth Anger was probably the biggest let down of the evening. One could see how it could have at one time influenced a generation of filmmakers but now it just seems sort of silly.

Len Lye's film "Free Radicals" was, along with Brakhage, one of the most experimental from the standpoint of technique and was made by scratching directly onto the film using various tools. The scratching was done to African drum music and the effect is hypnotic.

Probably the audience's second most favorite film of the night was "Schmeerguntz" by Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley. The film explores the role of women in society and, though made in 1966, is still quite potent today. A large portion of the film uses Wiley's actual pregnancy as the means by which to explore and the overall effect is powerful but also humorous. Especially impressive is the fact that this was their first film.

Alone in the Dark

There is a certain kind of actor who relishes the opportunity to play a crazy person. What better opportunity to overact and chew the scenery in ways that more buttoned-down roles won't allow? Several of those actors, including Jack Palance and Martin Landau, are featured prominently in Alone in the Dark. Donald Pleasence, no stranger to the less subtle aspects of the acting profession, is also in Alone in the Dark, playing the director of an insane asylum. But even his character seems to be few chairs short of a dinette set.

Pleasence plays Leo Bane, the ditzy head of an unorthodox asylum known as The Haven, where the "voyagers" (don't call them patients!) are contained by doors held shut electrically. How exactly this is more humane than doors that lock mechanically isn't made clear, but neither are any of Dr. Bane's other methods. Dwight "A-Team" Schultz plays Dr. Potter, a psychiatrist whose wife wishes he would treat "neurotics, like everbody else." His only response is that he "just prefers psychopaths," and so he steps into a recently-vacated position at the Haven. In his charge are several of the more violent patients, including ex-POW Hawke (Palance), church arsonist and former clergyman Byron (Landau), and a three hundred-plus pound child molester called Fatty. Led by Hawke, the psychos decide that Potter must have murdered their previous doctor for his position and so decide to kill him in return.

One evening a city-wide blackout allows these three patients, along with another mysterious killer known as the Bleeder (who doesn't like to expose his face), to escape. Under the cover of the power outage and some convenient civil unrest, Hawke, Byron, and Fatty surround Potter's house, intent on killing him and his family.

Made in the wake of Halloween and its imitators, Alone in the Dark conforms slavishly to slasher movie conventions despite not being about a solo slasher. For instance, the filmmakers manage to kill the token "first to die" black guy twice, and there are some laughable moments as the script goes through contortions to provide some sex-crazed teenagers for the psycho sacrfice. Prepare to have your intelligence further insulted when they try to pull off two plot twists late in the game, namely the 11th-hour appearance of the Bleeder and the deus ex machina, can't-believe-they-tried-to-pull-it-off ending.

Although this was hardly a first film for the lead actors, it was the debut film for director Jack Sholder, who would later inflict still more lowbrow horror films on the moviegoing populace, most recently the uncalled-for Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies. At least that part of this film's message was true: sometimes they DO let the inmates run the asylum. Grade D+