Love and Death on Long Island (1997)

" .. study what happens to anyone beholding an actress--the spectator, the audience, or ourselves in any of our voyeur roles. And the most important thing in that vexed transaction is the way the actress and the spectator must remain strangers. That's how the magic works … For there cannot be this pitch of irrational desire without that rigorous apartness, provided by a hundred feet of warm space in a theater, and by that astonishing human invention, the screen, at the movies. And just as the movies were never simply an art or a show, a drama or narrative, but the manifestation of desire, so the screen is both barrier and open sesame. 

The thing that permits witness--seeing her, being so intimate--is also the outline of a prison." -- from the introduction to Nicole Kidman by David Thomson

Hector's Top Ten Films of the 1920s

I must confess that I haven't seen nearly as many films from the silent era (and very early sound era) as I should've. I've actually seen so few films from the twenties that in order to make this a "top ten" list rather than a "top eight" one I have to include two films that I'm not certain I've seen in their entirety. You might argue that I'm not qualified to create such a list, and you'd probably be right, but I have a great deal of appreciation for 20s films (particularly of the German Expressionist variety) and there are several films from this era that have impressed me so much that I can't bear not to include them in a "top ten" list of some kind. So, if you see that titles you feel should be here are missing (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Sunrise, Battleship Potemkin, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Last Laugh) the reason I haven't included them is that I haven't seen them.  

Death and the Maiden (1994)

"Paulina Escobar (Weaver) is a housewife married to a prominent lawyer in an unnamed South American country. One day a storm forces her husband Gerardo (Wilson) to ride home with a kind stranger. That chance encounter brings up demons from her past, as she is convinced that the stranger, Dr. Miranda (Kingsley), was part of the old fascist regime and that he tortured and raped her while she was blindfolded. Paulina takes him captive to determine the truth. Despite attempts by both her husband and Miranda to convince her that he is innocent, Paulina is certain that he is the one, and forces her husband to be Miranda's 'attorney' in the 'trial' she arranges for him." 

This is the climactic scene, so if you haven't seen the film I recommend you watch it first. It plays better in context. Under the threat of death if he doesn't make a genuine confession, Miranda starts talking. 

A Viewer's Guide to the Minor Characters of Heat (1995)

Heat was a Los Angeles Crime Saga that employed a quarter of the actors in Los Angeles. You may have seen it once years ago. If it wasn't to your taste there isn't anything I can say but if you didn't get as much out of it as you might've because of the difficulty in keeping a couple dozen characters and subplots straight I can be of help. I've watched it about as many times as there are speaking parts in the film [hold for applause] so I've created a cheat sheet for you to print out and consult the next time you watch it. 

Sully (1951-1985)

Played by David Patrick Kelly in Commando. 

Hector's Five Most Unpleasant-Looking Gunshot Wounds

5. True Romance (1993)

Mistakenly thinking it to be White Boy Day, Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) arranges a meeting with (barges in on) his wife's employer (pimp), Drexl (Gary Oldman), in order to discuss terms for prematurely terminating her business contract with him (kill him). When Drexl rejects Clarence's initial offer of one thousand air molecules and Clarence expresses an unwillingness to negotiate further, voices are raised (punches are thrown) and legal action is threatened (guns are drawn). Drexl has a crack legal team (a violent disposition, a lot of guns, and a large bodyguard named Marty) in his employ and he soon appears to be on the verge of winning an extremely favorable judgment against (killing) Clarence, but Clarence finds a clause in the contract (gun) that effectively nullifies the agreement (enables Clarence to...well, just watch:)

Streets of Fire (1984)

"It's probably impossible not to enjoy .. " -- David Chute, Film Comment 

"People ask me what the story is. I say the Queen of the Hop has been kidnapped by the Leader of the Pack and Soldier Boy comes home to do something about it." -- director Walter Hill 

" .. the language is strange .. It's tough, but not with 1984 toughness. It sounds like the way really mean guys would have talked in the late 1950s, only with a few words different – as if this world evolved a slightly different language." -- Roger Ebert 

Here's my promise: I've never been to a Karaoke Night in my life, but for anyone reading this, if you agree to get up and do "Total Eclipse of the Heart" the way it should be done (broad, full-out emotion, put your all into hitting every note and don't stop if your voice starts to crack; interpretive hand gestures and arm movement optional), I'll do my best to attend (but if I can't and you put it up on YouTube I'll watch it at least 7-8 times). Because that'll never fail to be riveting. 

So You Want to Become a Vampire

Whether or not to let yourself be turned into a vampire is one of the biggest decisions in a person's life and like every important decision it can be based on what we've seen in movies. Say some tall stranger with pale skin, awesome hair and a vaguely Slavic-sounding name sits down next to you at Sbarro tonight and asks "Do you want to become a Creature of the Night, my child?" Don't be put off. That's how they talk. (It's how you'll talk, too. That's your first warning from me.) Calmly ask him to produce some fangs. If he can't, find the nearest mall cop. If he can, it's decision time. Will you be ready? I don't believe you will, so I've come up with a list of things to consider before baring your neck.

Piranha (2010) vs Drive Angry (2011)

"I am going to kill you, and then I'm going to defile your corpse."

One of the major differences between the exploitation films of the 1970s and what passes for exploitation cinema today is that such sentences appear in the scripts of the latter as dialogue and in the former as stage directions ("Jonah kills Piper and defiles her corpse").  When Jonah says these words in Drive Angry, the audience recognizes that the threat is an idle one.  In the exploitation films of the 70s such dialogue is unnecessary because the individual to whom these words would have been spoken has already been shot and the person who would have spoken them is already balls-deep in the bullet hole.

Pump Up the Volume (1990) vs Vision Quest (1985)

"My theory is that when it comes to important subjects there's only two ways a person can answer. Which way they choose tells you who that person is. For instance, there's only two kinds of people in the world: Beatles people and Elvis people. Now, Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like Beatles but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice and that choice tells you who you are." -- Mia Wallace, from a deleted Pulp Fiction scene 

It's reductive but it's a conversation starter so let's use it as a way to frame this. How you felt about high school can be determined by whether you're a Pump Up the Volume person or a Vision Quest person. The main characters, Mark Hunter/"Hard Harry" and Louden Swain, are complete opposites in many ways, among them attitude, lifestyle, aspirations and musical taste. Teenagers want to be or feel like Mark or they want to be or feel like Louden.
 

Hector's Five Sickest Projectile Vomit Scenes

If there's one thing that makes me want to fuckin' puke, other than warm beer, it's a half-assed vomit scene. I realize that in real life people don't repaint the walls with partially digested food when they throw up, but one of the purposes of film, and of art in general, is to show us something we don't witness every day. If I wanted to see someone produce two cubic centimeters of saliva-colored liquid after retching over a toilet for fifteen minutes, I'd go to a frat kegger. There's a reason that I sit around and watch movies all day and all night instead of going out and interacting with the outside world, and that's that I'm a lazy and misanthropic bastard. Oh, and also that real life is boring, and if I couldn't escape the depressing mundanities of everyday existence (an existence in which vomiting humans can't be used as backup fire hoses) by watching people launch their lunches into low Earth orbit in films like those described below, I'd... well, I suppose I'd get more exercise. But the point is this: If you're going to take the trouble to put a vomit scene in your film, do it right. If you're not sure how, read on.

MacGruder (1959-1994)

Played by John C. McGinley in On Deadly Ground.

Killed by a Propeller

William McNamara

William West McNamara was born March 31, 1965 in Dallas, Texas to a "professional race car driver .. and an interior designer." (Call him "Bill" or "Billy," please. Only his mother calls him "William.") He "attended" Columbia University and "studied" at the Lee Strasberg Institute. I assume those are euphemistic ways of saying he didn't finish at either one. The list of alumni on the Strasberg Institute's official page includes Rebecca Gayheart, Kevin Corrigan and Adam Sandler. It does not include Billy McNamara. (It also lists credits for some actors to help identify them but not others. It assumes you know who Kathy Griffin is but Dennis Hopper? He was in Easy Rider. Who doesn't know Catherine Hicks but Harvey Keitel? You remember, Pulp Fiction. Linda Hamilton? Sure. Angelina Jolie? Oh right, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.) 

Lots of famous actors are college dropouts. When they're asked why they left school on shows like Inside the Actors Studio the answer is often something like this: "I knew I would be an actor since I was seven or eight. My [m]om and I lived out in Los Angeles and one of her close friends was Valerie Perrine. She was like the Julia Roberts of the Seventies and we used to hang out at her house. She had all these interesting people over all the time. I hung out and watched these people and it was like hanging out at the circus or carnival. That's the kind of attraction it is." 

Hector's Five Wackiest Rape Scenes

A few days ago, I was watching a somewhat recent film (whose title I won't mention lest I be accused of spoiling it) that featured a scene in which a character was raped by a not-quite-human creature. The movie wasn't particularly good, but this scene did lead me to mentally catalog some of the more bizarre screen rapes that have occurred over the years (particularly in the 70s and 80s because -- let's face it -- films are a hell of a lot tamer and less creative now than they used to be). Here are the wackiest five, and if you feel I've left out an important one, say so.

Stone Cold (1991)

In 1991, the American action movie reigned supreme. The genre's rise to box office prominence had begun in the mid-80s with a string of one-man army flicks starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (Commando, Raw Deal, Predator) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo: First Blood Part II, Cobra, Rambo III). By 1990, pictures starring the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were regularly posting domestic gross figures in excess of $40 million. Ticket sales for this type of film began to decline in 1992, and by 1997 most of these titles went directly to video. 1991 was the pinnacle of the action era and it saw the release of the definitive action movie: Stone Cold.

Stone Cold stars former NFL player Brian Bosworth as Joe Huff, an Alabama cop who's just been suspended for insubordination. It isn't clear exactly what Huff did to earn this punishment (punishment? The suspension is "with pay." That's what those of us who don't work in law enforcement call "vacation," and if insubordination was the key to getting more of it our managers would be greeted with "fuck you" choruses upon arriving at the office every morning), but it probably had something to do with his haircut. I'm jumping ahead, though. Let's back up to...