If you’d happened to watched last year’s crime noir film Motherless Brooklyn and not known the screenwriter or director, I wouldn’t fault you if you expected to see Francis Ford Coppola’s name in the credits, or you figured Martin Scorsese finally made the perfect New York picture. But that’s not what you’ll find, because it not only stars Edward Norton, but he wrote and directed the film–his first director effort. And it’s an exciting, stunning, gritty film. The fact that Motherless Brooklyn is even worthy of comparison might be praise enough for the film and its creator, but it goes a step further and surpasses a film it’s frequently been compared to–Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. The fact that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and The Irishman were nominated for best film at the Oscars this year, but this wasn’t? That’s a real head-scratcher–or that Norton’s performance as a Tourette’s syndrome-affected private detective trying to find the guys that killed his boss wasn’t even nominated for best actor? Movie lovers and fans of crime noir who missed it should catch its home release. It’s as good as it gets.
The director of The Untouchables, Scarface, Carrie, and Mission: Impossible and writer/director of screenplays for more than a dozen noir thriller films including Body Double, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, Obsession, and Femme Fatale has penned his first novel. Along with former New York Times editor Susan Lehman, celebrated movie writer/director Brian De Palma delves into a story of intrigue behind a fictional 2016 senatorial campaign in the new political thriller Are Snakes Necessary? arriving in two weeks from Hard Case Crime. The modern pulp noir follows intersecting characters in a smarmy world of cheating, lying, and murder, from Las Vegas to Washington to Paris.
A senator and his majordomo encounter a woman from the senator’s past at an airport, and the senator is eager to welcome her daughter as an intern to document his campaign. Meanwhile, a struggling photographer gets mixed up with the trophy wife of a wealthy businessman in Las Vegas. Two married couples–a cheating wife and a cheating husband–the wife a victim of spousal abuse seeking to get out, and a politician with a sick wife staking out his next conquest. And somehow they all come together during a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, based more toward the underlying novel, which was set in France (I reviewed the novel a few weeks ago here at borg).
In a way Are Snakes Necessary? is De Palma taking a stab at doing his own play on Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski. Fans of The Girl on the Train, Chinatown, State of Play, and the sleazier shelf of 1970s era pulp crime novels will go for this one, along with fans of De Palma’s films. More about 20th century sexual politics than 21st century sexual politics and less about a political campaign, the snakes in the title are the men who continue to get away with manipulation, lies, and sometimes murder.
Quentin Tarantino‘s next film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has so many reasons to give it your attention, where do we begin? As heavily advertised, the “retired director” is back as writer and director on his ninth film, and every one of his films gains critical and popular acclaim–from Reservoir Dogs to The Hateful Eight, they’re all notable for Tarantino’s unique brash and violent style. Emphasize that style element because he tends to hit the right mark when searching out throwback vibes for his fans, whether via Pam Grier and Samuel L. Jackson in the 1970s in Jackie Brown or reaching back through time with 1950s nostalgia with John Travolta and Uma Thurman in a retro diner in Pulp Fiction. So where will Tarantino turn for a film set in 1969? Something violent in an era of unique style. So the “Manson family” murders, of course.
The biggest risk for Tarantino (beyond being seen as exploiting a murder still in the national consciousness 50 years later) is casting some major actors, and some not-so-major actors, as actors from the past. The easier question to answer may be “Who isn’t in this movie?” In the leading role is Leonardo DiCaprio as a fictional character based on Burt Reynolds. Brad Pitt co-stars as a character based on Reynolds’ long-time stuntman, Hal Needham. Margot Robbie plays actress and Manson family victim Sharon Tate, who was married to Roman Polanski and pregnant at the time of her murder. Dakota Fanning plays Squeaky Fromme, Bruce Dern plays the rancher that allowed the Mansons to reside on his land where they are believed to have planned the murders, and Lena Dunham plays another Manson family member. Al Pacino plays a Hollywood agent, and from the Tarantino acting troupe, look for bit appearances by regulars Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, and Michael Madsen. As a sad footnote, this will be the last film appearance of Luke Perry, who portrays real-life TV Western star Wayne Maunder, who died just this past November.
But the real challenge is casting Steve McQueen, Bruce Lee, Connie Stevens, and Mama Cass Elliot in the film–highly-recognizable icons. Those roles go to Homeland and Life’sDamian Lewis as McQueen, Empire and Inhumans’Mike Moh as Lee, Dreama Walker(Gran Torino) as Stevens, and Rachel Redleaf as Cass. We only get a brief look at Redleaf and longer view of Moh as Lee (with a decent vocal impersonation) in the first trailer for the film–Lee had been working on a film with Sharon Tate. Tarantino also invited in a league of children of well-known actors for his film, like Andie MacDowell’s daughter Margaret Qualley(IO), Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter Rumer Willis(Hawaii Five-O), Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke’s daughter Maya Hawke(Stranger Things), Kevin Smith’s daughter Harley Quinn Smith(Supergirl),Clifton Collins, Jr.(Star Trek 2009) grandson of Western actor Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, and one more relative, Tarantino’s wife, Daniella Pick(Pick Up, Exit).
Along with real-world characters, Tarantino pulled in some familiar actors from the late 1960s and 1970s, including Nicholas Hammond, known for role as Peter Parker in TV’s The Amazing Spider-Man, a regular face from the 1970s and 1980s: Martin Kove (The Karate Kid), and Brenda Vaccaro(Airport ’77, Capricorn One). And even frequent TV guest star Spencer Garrett is a ringer for any number of Disney film stars from the 1960s (and he’s the son of actress Kathleen Nolan (Magnum, p.i., The Incredible Hulk)). There are many more familiar actors in this one, including James Marsden (X-Men), Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild),Lorenza Izzo(The House With a Clock in Its Walls),Sydney Sweeney(The Handmaid’s Tale), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer favorite Danny Strong. (With so many extras listed as Playboy Bunnies, it’s probably fair to expect a cameo from someone playing Hugh Hefner, too).
In case you missed it, here is the first trailer for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood:
Something peculiar lurks in the shadows behind the critically acclaimed 2013 Sundance release Escape from Tomorrow. You can even make out the shape of two giant ears and a large white gloved hand forming one of the shadows. The story behind the film is a story surprisingly underreported by the mainstream press, and when it has found coverage since the film’s festival release it typically centers around expressions of shock and surprise at a filmmaker who would dare to cast Disney–yes, Disney–in anything other than a sugar-coated, happy-go-lucky light. This week was no different with the news that Escape from Tomorrow has found a distributor and is on its way to theaters across America. Shock and awe again. “No one really believes it will actually get released” and similar sentiments abound.
The response seems so much like the family and “friends” of Billy Mumy’s character Anthony in the classic episode of The Twilight Zone, “It’s a Good Life.” If you haven’t seen the episode, drop everything and get thee to a Netflix. Little, sweet boy Anthony has the power to destroy anyone around him and everyone treats him with love and care not because they want to but because they have to. Disney’s power is like that of Anthony, the Mob, the Crown, the Pope, the Company… all rolled into one. American families happily hand over their children to Disney as they would their church or pastor. After all Disney is all about “families,” isn’t it? They really do know best, don’t they? We’re safe leaving our kids in the care of Disney videos, right? Disney is synonymous with love.
