After decades of selling the boy-toy of choice for straight men of a certain age (and income), how is Harley-Davidson going to rediscover itself? A road trip to India, apparently.

A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal story this week lays out the rationale — growing middle and upper classes, aspiration for classic American luxury brands. Apparently it took the Great Recession for Harley to figure out what the rest of the world has known about and been chasing for years — new money in BRIC.

When the “Easy Rider” image of Harley outsider rebel chic has been supplanted by the doughy, affluent sadness of “Wild Hogs,” something is terribly, terribly wrong.

As Rick Barrett recently noted in his Harley enthusiast blog for the JS:

Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycle sales are rumbling along in low gear as the riding season winds down across much of the country and consumers continue to be cautious in their spending.

From October through early November, sales of new Harleys were down 25% to 30% from a year ago, according to a motorcycle dealership survey released Monday by Robert W. Baird & Co.

Used bike sales fell just 7%, as they were less affected by the recession, the report notes.

Inventories of new Harleys increased even as the motorcycle company slashed production. The average U.S. Harley-Davidson dealership had 54 bikes in September, up from 38 a year earlier, the Baird report says.

“Most dealers are disappointed with low levels of marketing/advertising and a lack of Harley promotions,” Baird analyst Craig Kennison wrote in his analysis of the survey.

Still, the Baird report anticipates a turnaround for the company in 2011. Based on what? Harley’s aging demographic in its core U.S. market? Lower incomes and lower marginal propensity to consume? The Baird report apparently does not say. And we all know how accurate and reliable the analysis of sell-side investment firms has been over the past several years.

Imagine those words being spoken in the 1960’s, after Corman had directed films like LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, THE INTRUDER, and THE WILD ANGELS. His progeny of talent, including Jack Nicholson, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorcese, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Robert De Niro, Peter Bogdanovich, Bruce Dern, Robert Towne, Jonathan Demme, Stephanie Rothman, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, John Sayles, James Cameron and many others, evolved into the foundation for the New Hollywood of the 70’s and beyond. Without Corman’s belief in fresh ideas and visions, however exploitive at the root, many talented and important filmmakers might not have had the chance to break celluloid ground. So it’s apropos that one of the industry’s biggest outsiders was finally awarded an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar on Saturday along with Lauren Bacall and Gordon Willis. As when Ray Harryhausen was presented with one after decades of envy and indifference, it’s good to see the Academy acknowledge artists who created outside its respect or attention. Though I’m disappointed the statue wasn’t presented to Roger Corman during the live broadcast — just to see a cavalcade of Panavision AIP images before the world.

From Rebel Without a Cause to Easy Rider and now Crash, Dennis Hopper’s acting career spans six decades. But he is also a painter, photographer, writer and art collector. As he explains to Thomas Caldwell, it’s all about being creative.

"Self-portrait at the Porn Stand", oil on canvas by Dennis Hopper, 1962-2008

When I speak to Dennis Hopper he is in New Mexico, US, making the second series of Crash, a TV program based on the 2004 film of the same name. Hopper plays a wild character he describes as a Phil Spector type: “He’s a music mogul from the ’60s. He’s into orgies, drugs and all sorts of crazy insanity.” For those familiar with Hopper playing the deranged villain in films such as Speed (1994) this sounds like sensible casting.

The truth is, however, that Hopper has mellowed significantly, especially since his more excessive days during the ’70s. In conversation, he sounds a lot like the character he played in Elegy (2008); he is polite, amiable, full of admiration for his colleagues, and speaks slowly and deliberately.

Hopper, 73, is happy to reflect on his career, and talks passionately about what is clearly his favourite subject: art. Besides acting, he is a recognised painter, photographer, writer, director and art collector. His work has been exhibited internationally, and has been used on many magazine covers, including Vogue and Artforum.

Hopper may well emerge as a great American Renaissance Man of the late-20th and early-21st century. This would be an unlikely and unexpected outcome for someone who describes his own career as unfortunate. Indeed, after making Easy Rider (1969), one of the definitive counter-culture films of all time, Hopper’s cinematic career went through a tumultuous period. He has been sober for more than 20 years, but, as he has acknowledged previously, alcohol and substance abuse hit him hard during the 70s. It was during this period that he developed his tormented, wild and dangerous on-screen persona in films such as Wim Wenders’ The American Friend (1977) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).

It wasn’t until 1986 that Hopper arrived back in Hollywood and revived his acting career, appearing in both David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, as the frighteningly primal psychopath Frank Booth, and in the more family friendly Hoosiers, for which he received an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor. These are two roles that Hopper looks back on fondly. However, he still regards Easy Rider as the high point of his career: “Being involved in the writing, directing and acting for my first film; accomplishing what I set out to do by showing the country and showing what was happening in the country at the time; and playing this goofy sort of sidekick. I’m very proud of that.”

Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider (1969)

Hopper and his Easy Rider co-writers, Peter Fonda and Terry Southern, not only received an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay, they created a film that still resonates 40 years on. In the film, Hopper and Fonda play a pair of drug dealers travelling across America on motorbikes. One of the many people they meet is a ‘square’ alcoholic lawyer – memorably played by Jack Nicholson, in a breakthrough role. Easy Rider was made independently from the studio system and its experimental approach to filmmaking captured an early representation of the hippie movement, which included communal living, drug use and the way such a lifestyle threatened the mainstream establishment.

Although Hopper acknowledges that Easy Rider is something of a time capsule in terms of fashion and music, its independent and rebellious spirit is still relevant today. “I’ve seen it recently with young audiences and they are very surprised. It hasn’t really aged at all.”

Easy Rider is just one example of how Hopper has both documented and contributed to some of America’s most exciting and influential cinematic and artistic movements. Now his direct involvement has been captured in an exhibition, Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood, which will be presented at The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. When Hopper is asked how this exhibition reflects his career and legacy he is keen to make it clear that its focus is on the era rather than himself: “I think it’s more about the time that I was living. It really deals a lot with the art world in my life. My photographs deal with 1961 to 1967, with subjects like Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights movement and my involvement in the hippie movement. Then there’s my art collection, as I was very involved when Marcel Duchamp [the influential French artist] had his first retrospective in Pasadena in 1963. I was also very involved with Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol and all the pop artists of the 60s. That’s basically the history of my life besides being in films – and this all happened before I did Easy Rider. To walk through this exhibition is to walk from 1954 until now.”

"Paul Newman", gelatin silver print by Dennis Hopper, 1964

The year 1954 is significant, as that was when Hopper turned 18 and was contracted by Warner Bros. “I’ve been in the public eye for a long time. I forget about it at times. But then I’m rudely reminded!” As well as Martin Luther King Jr, Hopper has also photographed Warhol, singer James Brown and actor Paul Newman, although Hopper insists on clarifying the circumstances in which those photographs were taken: “I wasn’t doing assignments or anything. The people I photographed were friends of mine. I didn’t photograph a lot of movie actors because it wasn’t appropriate. It would have been an intrusion. They were being photographed all the time. Paul Newman was an exception because he was a really close friend.”

One of Hopper’s other iconic actor friends was James Dean, with whom he shared the screen in Rebel Without a Cause (1955; Hopper’s first film role) and Giant (1956). Hopper once described Dean as the most talented and original actor he had encountered. “I thought I was the best young actor in the world, and then I saw James work. I came out of playing Shakespeare at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. I’d never seen anybody improvise before. I was used to learning lines. It was a whole other side to acting – to live in the moment and have no preconceived ideas. That was not the way I was working. So when I came onto the set of Rebel Without a Cause and we started rehearsing I suddenly realised that he’d been working off the page and it was amazing to me. I’d never seen anything like it; doing it in the moment without preconceived ideas.”

Hopper also greatly values art that exists in the moment and reflects the time it was created. His own painting style is conceptual; influenced by abstract expressionism. A pivotal episode in his development occurred in 1962, when a friend who owned an art gallery in Los Angeles showed Hopper pictures of a cartoon and a soup can. “The cartoon was by Roy Lichtenstein and the soup can was by Warhol. Neither one of them had ever had shows before. I suddenly started jumping up and down and said ‘That’s it! That’s it! That’s the return to reality.’”

"Andy Warhol with flower", oil on vinyl by Dennis Hopper, 1963-2000

Hopper went to New York, where he met with Henry Geldzahler (then head of 20th-century art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art) and also pop artists Warhol, Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist. “They were all the major players and they had never really had any shows at all,” recalls Hopper who, as well as being part of Duchamp’s first and only retrospective, was also part of Warhol’s first exhibition.

“Warhol was dabbling in the commercial area, doing silkscreen work and 20-foot high murals, while fine art was seen as something that was three-by-two feet. It was a different time and a different way of looking at things. Warhol and Lichtenstein stand a real chance of being remembered for their time because they did represent it.”

One of the more curious entries on Hopper’s resumé is his lead role in the 1976 Australian film Mad Dog Morgan, in which he played the notorious real-life bushranger Dan Morgan (alongside Jack Thompson). He loved the experience, describing the film as “way ahead of the curve”. And Hopper sounds delighted when I tell him that Morgan is one of many Australian ‘Ozploitation’ genre films from the 70s and 80s that are now being re-evaluated.

Dennis Hopper in Mad Dog Morgan (1976)

He also responds to concerns that Australia is not doing enough to make commercially viable cinema: “Look, Australian filmmakers are making great movies. They really are. Most of the time they are really hitting the mark. I can figure in my head what might be commercial and what might not be commercial, but in the end that isn’t really the filmmakers’ responsibility. The filmmaker should make his or her film. If they can get financing to make their film then they should make their film.” But Hopper does worry that filmmaking as art is being devalued by films that can turn a profit: “It’s all about what the big hit is going to be on the weekend.”

So how can people be encouraged to see more innovative movies? Hopper has an intriguing proposal: “I’ve always thought that when people build these cineplexes that they should have 10 theatres. Have one for the history of cinema to show old classic films, then have one for foreign films, and one for experimental and art films. Then the other seven can play the Hollywood game… After a year, people would start making a steady line into those other three theatres, because they’d want other people to see them standing in those lines rather than the others!”

It seems that Hopper is never going to be short of ideas or inspiration. There is a pattern running through his career: when one avenue for expression temporarily closes down, he finds another. So is Hopper one of those people who always feels compelled to create? “Yeah, that’s all I do. I never had to stop the things I did in high school, like taking photographs and painting, and that allowed me to have a cultural life. When I was young, most people were going skiing and going to the beach and doing other things. My mother managed a swimming pool so I didn’t need to be going there. I wanted to go to the art galleries. I wanted to find the artists that I liked. I wanted to meet them and I wanted to do that kind of work.”

Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood will be at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) from Thursday 12 November 2009 to Sunday 25 April 2010.

Originally appeared in The Big Issue, No. 341, 2009

© Thomas Caldwell, 2009

photo: Mario Anzuoni

Ed and Frankie welcome actress Gail Gerber (The Loved One, Village of the Giants) and film historian Tom Lisanti, co-authors of Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember, a poignant look at the life and career of iconic novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern

http://media.podcastingmanager.com/9/3/5/3/3/142636-133539/Media/110209tvc33_1.mp3

Um mir die Zeit zu vertreiben, habe ich mal im Internet nach Listen mit den besten Filmen aller Zeiten gesucht. Leider musste ich feststellen das es nicht diese EINE liste gibt. Aber nun ja so ist es halt.

Nun einer dieser Filme auf den Listen war Esay Rider .
Leider kann ich nichts über die Handlung in diesem Film sagen, da ich Ihn nach ca 30 min abschalten musste.

Ich kann nur sagen das die optische Darstellung des Wyatt von Peter Fonda, in mir einen Ekel hervor rief, der mich Zwang den Film ab zu schalten.

Dennis Hopper als Billy dagegen sah ja wenigsten noch echt aus, aber dieser ja schon fast Babypopohaft rasierte Peter Fonda, nein der ging gar nicht.
Peter Fonda wirkte auf mich wie ein schwuler Harley Möchtegern Biker, der mit seiner patriotisch wirkenden Jacke einfach unrealistisch war.
Ich weis nicht ob dieser Film wirklich gut war oder nicht, aber für mich hätte man auch Bill Kaulitz auf das Bike setzten könne, es wäre genauso grauenhaft gewesen.

Bitte versteht mich nicht falsch, es kann durchaus sein das der Film inhaltlich und auch sonst gut war, aber ich konnte diesen wiederwertigen Anblick des Wyatt nicht ertragen.

Der Film war für einige Awards nominiert, unter anderem zwei mal für den Oscar, den er dann jedoch nicht bekam. Allerdings hat er einige andere Awards bekommen und ich bin froh und unterstütze es heute noch das Peter Fonda keinen für diesen Film bekam, yippie yeahh.

Peace and Love

Davy

Easy Rider è un film del 1969, diretto da Dennis Hopper.

Leggi altre notizie su: | Drammatico | Dennis Hopper | Peter Fonda | Dennis Hopper | Jack Nicholson

Writer/Director Troy Duffy has had ten years to develop a sequel to Boondock Saints and this is what we get? Either the moderate success of the first film has gone to his head or he’s secretly teamed up with the Wayans brothers, because All Saints Day comes across as more of a spoof than a sequel to an action-packed, dramatic and even endearing original. The only thing All Saints Day preserves of its predecessor is the frequency of bullets flying. Forget the mob, the MacManus brothers should be more worried about Duffy ruining their reputation.

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Russell Crowe waxes philosophic -- and wields a mean double-barrel -- in "3:10 to Yuma."

There’s a brief scene early in “3:10 to Yuma”* that cuts straight to film’s conflicted conscience: Outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) sizes up one of his holier-than-thou captors and remarks, “Even bad men love their mamas.” And with that one seemingly junkheap-bound line of dialogue “Yuma” reveals itself to be a different kind of Western – one where the villains are intelligent and adaptable and the righteous are greedy and downright foolhardy in their moral inflexibility. One thing is for sure: a run-of-the-mill Saturday morning cowboys-and-Indians picture “Yuma” is certainly not.

At the heart of this Western is Dan Evans (Christian Bale), a down-on-his-luck Arizona rancher who serves as proof that the good don’t always triumph. (Sometimes they even fail miserably.) Broke, weary and nearly crippled by a Civil War injury, he’s all but run off his land by moneygrubbers who want to cash in on the ever-expanding railroad industry. His oldest son William (Logan Lerman) and wife Alice (Gretchen Mol) don’t believe they’ll survive the season. Then Evans stumbles upon Wade robbing a stagecoach, and his luck begins to change. Soon, he volunteers as part of the caravan scheduled to transport Wade to Contention, where the robber will board a train headed to Yuma prison and end up with his neck getting intimate with a hangman’s noose.

The trip, of course, is far from simple: There’s a misguided attempt to pass through Apache-controlled lands, and Wade’s gang – led by the vicious Charlie Prince (an impressively menacing Ben Foster) – tries to free the infamous robber at every stop. It’s a nonstop ride of violent action and quietly devastating character interaction that trails into an unexpected (and some might say unfulfilling) end.

Ah, the end. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth has taken place over the film’s final minutes, with most everyone railing and wringing their hands in frustration. Of course, the conclusion will not be revealed here, but it must be said that the film’s finale is the key to understanding what makes “Yuma” tick. The end offers no panacea – its ambiguity serves a purpose, a big one, and it’s up to viewers to do the mental heavy lifting.

But the end is only a small part of why “Yuma” is such a worthwhile venture. As an action film, “Yuma” is surprisingly bloody and brutal. Set against the unforgiving dustbowl of the searing Arizona desert, the shootouts and mine collapses and top-speed horse chases seem larger than life. (Then again, that’s what Westerns are, in some small part, about – showing the truths of life in unflinchingly hard ways.) But with a small cast studded with high-profile powerhouse actors, the acting in “Yuma” is hardly shabby, either. Legendary Peter Fonda has some fun with his character, Byron McElroy, a mean-as-a-snake bounty hunter who’d just as soon but a bullet in Wade’s eye than deliver him to the station. Alan Tudyk, a wildly underappreciated comic actor, draws a few laughs as Doc Potter, a large animal vet who unwitting gets roped into Wade’s caravan. And a note here about that Ben Foster, who tears into Charlie Prince like a man in throes of demonic possession: What an actor this guy’s turning out to be. 

For the most part, Bale and Crowe run this show, and with good reason. Bale, known for taking darker roles, transforms Dan from a one-note do-gooder into a conflicted character, a man who chooses to do right not because he’s a saint but because it’s all he’s got left. Ben Wade is the kind of role Crowe, who excells at creating laconic, morally amibuous characters, was born to play. With his crooked smile and mirthful eyes, he’s near perfect as Wade, a crook who lives as much by his wits as his pistol. He’s equal parts venom and compassion, and he sees what so few other characters do: Morality is entirely subjective.

Though Crowe alone is almost worth the admission price, there’s another reason to give “Yuma” a chance: Any Western where there is nary a tumbleweed to be seen, well, isn’t afraid to take chances.

Grade: B+

*Readers who have seen the original 1957 film: How does this one stack up?

Phantom of the Paradise is a 1974 musical film written and directed by Brian De Palma. The story is a loosely adapted mixture of The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Faust and also briefly references Frankenstein and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Initially, it had box office failure and was panned by some critics, but it was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe and has since acquired a cult following.

Tagline:  The music made him do it!

Trivia:

• The character Philbin, who is the chief henchman of the villain Swan, borrows his last name from Mary Philbin, star of The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
• The “Death Records” secretary’s card index includes files on Alice Cooper, David Geffen, Bette Midler, Peter Fonda, Dick Clark and Kris Kristofferson.
• On Phoenix’s mirror after the concert in which she becomes a star is a magazine ad with the headline “I’m a Harper’s Freak”. Phoenix was played by ‘Jessica Harper (I)’.
• At the airport when Beef is introduced, the “Death Records” logo on the lectern was superimposed over the original logo for “Swan Song” records to avoid conflict with Led Zeppelin’s record label, which had sued. Although the film’s producers were certain they would win due to the fact that the phrase was common long before, they decided to make the change in order to get the film finished quickly rather than go through a prolonged court fight.
• The Death Records logo is optically printed over the originally planned “Swan Song” label at several points in the film
• Cameo: [Rod Serling] introductory voiceover.
• Phantom was a box office flop the year it came out. The only place in North America where the film had lasting power was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where it stayed on the screens for months.
• Sissy Spacek is credited as “set dresser” for this film. As she was already an established actor when this film was made, one can assume that she took the job to assist her boyfriend, Jack Fisk, who was the film’s production designer.
• William Finley came up with the bird motif of the Phantom costume, a collaboration with costume designer Rosanna Norton.
• According to William Finley, the record press in which his Winslow character was disfigured was a real pressing plant (it was an injection-molding press at an Ideal Toy Co. plant). He was worried about whether the machine would be safe, and the crew assured that it was. The press was fitted with foam pads (which resemble the casting molds in the press), and there were chocks put in the center to stop it from closing completely. Unfortunately, the machine was powerful enough to crush the chocks that it gradually kept closing. It was Finley’s speed and timing that saved him from truly being hurt, as he got his head out just in time. Incidentally, his scream in the scene was real.
• Gerrit Graham has talked about the infamous “musical chairs” casting, where William Finley almost wound up with no part to play. The studio considered casting Paul Williams as Winslow, Graham as Swan and Peter Boyle as Beef. Williams turned down the role of Winslow not only because he didn’t feel physically fit or menacing for the role, but he didn’t want to use the role of Winslow as a message against the recording industry. Somehow, Boyle was unavailable, Graham took the Beef role, and Finley ultimately took the Winslow role. In fact, director Brian De Palma actually wrote the part with his colleague Finley in mind. William Finley said in a recent interview that Jon Voight was at one time considered for the role of Swan.
• The character of Winslow Leach (the Phantom) was named after director Brian De Palma’s mentor, Wilford Leach.
• The single-edit, “time bomb in the car trunk” sequence is an homage to Orson Welles’ famous opening for Touch of Evil (1958).
• Gerrit Graham’s singing voice was dubbed by Ray Kennedy.
• When Swan (Paul Williams) is adjusting Winslow’s voice, the singer is not William Finley but Paul Williams. This makes it a little in-joke when Swan announces that the voice is “perfect”.
• The “electronic room” in which Winslow composes his cantata (and where Swan restores his voice) is in fact the real-life recording studio, The Record Plant. Also, the walls covered with knobs are in reality a huge, custom-built Moog electronic synthesizer. Dubbed TONTO, this instrument was featured on several albums by the pioneering electronica duo T.O.N.T.O.’s Expanding Head Band, and it still exists to this day.
• During Beef’s introductory scene at the airport, on of the gathered reporters is named “Mr Pizer”. This is probably a reference to the film’s director of photography, Larry Pizer.
• In addition to Leroux’s “Phantom of the Opera” and Goethe’s (et al) “Faust”, the film also references Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” for a total of at least five citations of classical horror stories.
• Gerrit Graham was so sick the day that the “Life at Last” scene was filmed that he could hardly walk.
• Director Brian De Palma originally considered the popular group Sha-Na-Na for the roles of the Juicy Fruits, but the group was not only very big at the time, but he found them too difficult to work with.
• Jessica Harper beat out Linda Ronstadt for the part of Phoenix.
• Much of the movie deals with birds: The names Phoenix and Swan, the Phantom’s bird-like costume, Phoenix’s dress after her first appearance, her feather jacket, Swan’s bird vest, Beef’s bird tail during his number. Even the logo for Death Records is a bird.
• According to Danny Peary in the book Cult Movies 2, originally this film would have had the title “The Phantom” but King Features Syndicate, producers of the Phantom comic strip, demanded that this film have a longer title.
• This film homages the 1943 remake of the Phantom of the Opera, not the original novel; the 1943 film had the Phantom as a man disfigured by acid (similar to the 1939 origin of the Tonny Quinn, the Black Bat and the 1942 origin of Two-Face). In Leroux’s novel, the Phantom lived with his deformity from birth.

Amazon Specials!

The original line-up for the Byrds lasted just three short years, from 1965 through mid-1968, long enough to produce the timeless tracks “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (among a dozen others), plus four great folk-, psychedelic- and early country-rock albums. But guitarist Roger (nee Jim) McGuinn was forced to reconstitute the band when, over an 18-month period, original members Gene Clark quit, David Crosby left for Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Michael Clarke and Chris Hillman left for the Flying Burrito Brothers. From 1968 to their eventual breakup in 1972, McGuinn and the in-name-only Byrds underwent several other rounds of personnel changes, the middle of which led to the October 29, 1969 release of The Ballad of Easy Rider. The album has (obvious) close ties to the terrific July 1969 cult counterculture movie, Easy Rider, starring Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson. The film soundtracked several Byrds tunes, including the title track and the wonderful, rambling, spacey, folk-rock gem “Wasn’t Born To Follow.” Interest in a revitalized Byrds peaked after the movie’s summer release, and the working title of the album was originally Captain America (after the film’s anti-hero character). Despite all the hype, The Ballad Of Easy Rider peaked at just #36 in the U.S. Nonetheless, it’s a great late-60s country-rock album.

Check out my Byrds playlist at DrRock.com. The Ballad Of Easy Rider is available as download tracks from iTunes (click here) and as a CD from Amazon (click here).

Source: IMDB

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Sono trascorsi quarant’anni dal film cult Easy Rider, diretto da Dennis Hopper, ma il protagonista Peter Fonda è sempre in sella alla sua Harley Davidson ribattezzata Captain America.

Hollywood’s obsession with satanic horror revved up with 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby and kicked into high gear with 1973’s The Exorcist. And with two high points like that, you know there have to be some stinkers. Race With The Devil, from 1975, is often lumped in with the luciferian knockoffs of the era, but it holds a special place in my black little heart.

Like a lot of other movies I’m talking about this month, I first saw it on late-night TV when I was young. It might even have been the first time I really understood what “devil worship” was all about. I know I had recurring nightmares about hooded cult members laying siege to my isolated northern home even into my teens. I held onto that fear even after I learned the real cults in the neighbourhood didn’t wear hoods and robes.

• Plot: Peter Fonda and Warren Oates are buddies who take their dirt bikes and wives, in that order, on an RV trip through rural Texas, late in the year when you can still swim in pools during the day but need parkas at night. One night, camping down a dirt road, they see robed people dancing around a bonfire, and they see something awful happen. (The wives are Loretta Swit and Lara Parker). Nobody believes them as they are pursued across the state by a neverending army of evil … dressed in jeans and boots. It’s small-town terror, redneck revenge, and it’s presented fast and hard and brutal over the course of a few nasty days.

When I saw Race with the Devil again as an adult, I was impressed by how smart it is. It comes off as a cheapie, and it is, and you can just imagine the pitch that went into its creation:

• “What’s hot this year?”
• “Devil worship, dirt bikes and Hot Lips Houlihan!”
• “All right, mix that shit up into a movie for me! I need it in six weeks!”

Director Jack Starrett could have taken the easy route and knocked off a grindhouser. But he didn’t, and relied on the excellent acting of his stars — Oates, in particular, is a grumpy, Bogarty everyman who steps up as a capable field leader against the devil — to create a good example of 70s horror. With car chases. And country music.

“I don’t believe in a school bus on a Sunday!”

☺☺☺☺☺

Spezzare in due gli States in sella ad una motocicletta, cavalcare la libertà e fermarsi solo per contemplare il paesaggio e intanto esserne parte , esserci ed essere liberi. I due protagonisti sono Billy (Dennis Hopper) e Wyatt (Peter Fonda) e lungo l’asfalto macinando miglia su miglia incontreranno varie sfaccettature degli States dai liberi hippies ai bigotti uomini di città che mal sopporteranno la loro filosofia di vita fino alle estreme conseguenze. Di mezzo ci sarà George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) un compagno di viaggio speciale che coglierà la verità delle cose.

Avvertenze:

Essere liberi, ce ne ricordiamo ancora il sapore? Io credo di no. Parlano, parlano di libertà ma quando vedono un uomo libero, allora ne hanno paura. Sacrosante parole.

Alla prossima pillola. 

it’s looking like this baby might just be a scorpio.  i had assumed she’d be a libra.  i know and adore many libras.  scorpios, not so many – and no women scorpios (that i can think of at present).

i took mom and my belly to hooters in zurich today – kind of as a joke, as it’s not a place we would normally go, but as soon as it came out of my mouth, we both laughed and agreed that it was pretty perfect and that we needed something to shake things up and that maybe, just maybe, this baby would respond to chicken wings and curly fries … so far no dice.  but we did get this awfully swell photo:

i have to say, i feel as though we’ve tried just about everything ‘they’ (along with personal advice from good friends and my own crazy ideas) say to do to get babies out: the teas, walking, spicy food, acupuncture, acupressure, shiatsu, more walking, peter fonda rubbing the belly, galloping up and down on a curb, giving the kid a stern talking to, eating loaded pizza, going for a car ride on a somewhat bumpy road, relaxing baths, finishing her room, asking her nicely and even telling her what her name will likely be…

as i head to bed this evening after yet another wonderful meal made and cleaned up after by my amazing mother (with whom i’ve had the most delightful time waiting for this kid – she should sell herself as a ‘lady-in-waiting’ for these kinds of things – she’s got a real knack for it …), i take comfort in knowing that this little girl is already on her own path and will arrive when she is good and ready. 

so if not by tomorrow, mom and i will likely hit another brocki haus, go for more walks, knit and talk and laugh more, visit with friends and neighbors, watch a movie, eat some good food and field more calls from the U.S. asking, ‘where is she?!!!!’  and that’s okay too. (though i am getting a little impatient, i must admit…)

Cult and classic favorites, new editions, and complete series collections dominate today’s new release schedule.

Christmas is a little over nine weeks away, and already the movie studios and television networks are pumping out special editions of DVD and Blu-Ray sets unmistakable for their gift potential, including new editions and expanded versions of cult and classic favorites. This week shows a pretty broad cross section of the last forty years of film and television, including at least one half-forgotten classic TV series, possibly the best cop show ever, and a half-dozen other, smaller releases with appeal to more selective audiences.

The big release this week, of course, is Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD and Blu-Ray. Nevertheless, the following is just a sampling of what else is available, including the suggested manufacturer’s list price. Of course, prices may vary according to retailer, and will likely decrease as the holidays bear down on us.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles – “Those Aren’t Pillows” Edition ($14.98)  Boasting career highs from both writer-director John Hughes and co-star John Candy, this 1987 classic features Steve Martin as Neal Page, an uptight Chicago executive stuck in a series of accidents, near-accidents and strokes of bad luck while trying to fly home for Thanksgiving. Candy plays Del Griffith, the slovenly shower curtain ring salesman who dogs his every errant step and false move. The chemistry between Candy and Martin is almost legendary, with each new calamity building on the last to overwhelm the mismatched travelers. Full of quotes and scenes you’ll re-create with friends through the holidays. “Dell Griffith, please to meet you.”

This new DVD includes Hughes and Candy retrospectives and a deleted scene.

Monsoon Wedding – The Criterion Collection ($39.95) This 2001 dramatic comedy won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and helped reignite foreign film afficianados’ love affair with Bollywood cinema. Directed by Mira Nair (the upcoming Amelia), the story follows the entanglements and complications arising from a traditional Punjabi wedding, showing the ups and downs of both the family members and the servants on whose shoulders the celebration ultimately rests. Maybe some of the characters are a bit broad, and the observations a little precious, but audiences who enjoy family centered works such as this probably won’t care anyway.

The Criterion edition contains all the usual premium-grade extras you’d expect, including three short documentaries about India directed by Nair. Also available on Blu-Ray disc.

Easy Rider ($38.96) - The iconic road movie about 60s rebellion comes – only a little ironically – to Blu-Ray disc with a new featurette and commentary by director and co-star Dennis Hopper. For those few who don’t already know, the 1969 film follows two rebels (Hopper and Peter Fonda) as they drive from California to New Orleans in order to see Mardi Gras. Along the way they pick up a small-town lawyer (Jack Nicholson, in his star-making role) who shares their disillusionment with society and its trappings. For a treatise on freedom, the film’s attention to form, structure, and even geographic accuracy are appropriately loose, with digressions and long talky passages frequently interrupting the travelogue montage sequences. And the infamous ending, though explosive at the time, today feels both pretentious and stiff. Still, the movie overall captures the era’s zeitgeist, even while as a work of cinema it gets creakier by the year.

Vega$: The First Season Volume 1 ($36.98) More than twenty years before the sexy lab rats of CSI:, Las Vegas was kept safe by freewheelin’ private detective Dan Tanna (Robert Urich), cruising the streets in his vintage Thunderbird and solving cases with his bumbling sidekick and single-mom secretary. The show is vintage late 70s cheese, right down to the swanky, horn-driven music and do-your-thing attitude, and with his cool car and hip bachelor pad Tanna is the archetypal private eye of the period. Urich, who might be described not unkindly as the Tim Daly of his generation, holds the show down thanks to his easy charm. The three-disc set includes the first half of the first season, though why CBS video wouldn’t spring for the other half is anybody’s guess.

Homicide: Life On The Street – The Complete Series ($149.95) About as far from Vega$ as humanly possible in tone and approach alike, NBC’s critically-adored, audience-starved 1993-99 procedural consistently struggled to find its audience, and no wonder. The show was simply ahead of its time, as demonstrated by the success of The Wire, Homicide creator David Simon’s later effort and a sequel to this earlier series in all but name. Based on Simon’s book chronicling his year with the Baltimore Police homicide department, Homicide the series ranks among the best television ever produced, and for our money it’s the best cop show ever. Utterly and completely riveting for six of its seven seasons, with the seventh (following the departure of breakout star Andre Braugher) being only very good. The middle seasons depicting the mammoth “Luther Mahoney Saga” are essential viewing for any cop show fan.

The equally mammoth 35-disc collection includes all 122 episodes, three crossover Law & Order episodes, and the 2001 telepic Homicide: Life Everlasting, which served as coda and elegy and for the series.

The Hunger: The Complete Second Season ($39.98) Possibly the closest thing Generation X’ers might ever get to their own Twilight outside of the Whedonverse (True Blood arguably notwithstanding), the second and final season of this British anthology series featured demons, vampires, and smart erotica mixed into a potent swirl and hosted by David Bowie, who at 62 years old still has more erotic cool than the somnambulant hipsters of Twilight likely ever will.

The four disc set includes all 22 episodes, produced by Tony and Ridley Scott and featuring appearances by Anthony Michael Hall, Giovanni Ribisi, Eric Roberts, Brad Dourif, Jennifer Beals, and many others. The first season, hosted by Terrence Stamp, is also available.

- Michael Kabel

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