Disc Reviews

Maybe it’s simply just a part of growing up, but when I listen to the radio and I hear what is topping the charts I just roll my eyes and wonder, “What is this crap I’m listening to?”  We’ve all experienced this at some point, I’d imagine, and as I’ve gotten older my music tastes have seemed to move to before my time, as I’ve moved past my days of listening to strictly metal and rock that ruled the 90’s to now embracing the music of the 60’s and 70’s.  I listen to the pop music that floods the airwaves now and hear “music” that lacks substance and meaning, as it is just noise to play on the dance floors of clubs.  It’s here where I feel the series of documentaries Penelope Spheeris should conclude her saga of music over the decades.

In 1981 Penelope Spheeris came out with a documentary that captured the LA punk scene, a scene that was filled with such rebellious nature that for some it was the last stand against the corporations taking over our music.  These young men and women are pretty much the unsung heroes of music; whether you’re a fan or not of punk, it has made its mark on music to this day, and it did so without flashy music videos and without the Twitter-verse; it did so as a unified force that wasn’t afraid to stand up to its oppressors.

Life was financed by Canada and Australia with a Dutch director, but the subject matter was strictly American. I’m burying the lead because I want to give the film’s subject a proper buildup. Life is about one of the most famous people who ever lived. He was a person who was loved all over the world and whose face is the preeminent icon of youth and rebellion. One could argue there are others who could vie for the crown, but for different reasons I would insist that James Dean is the man. James Dean is unique for many reasons, but the main one is that he died at 24 at the cusp of a very big wave of fame. His talent and charisma was obvious, and he nailed it three out of three times on the big screen, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant. He was the next Brando but became the only James Dean. There are many screen legends, but no one burned brighter and faster with a light that shines to this very day. He died September 30, 1955 from a car crash.

Life is the story of a photographer who spent a few days with Dean just before he became insanely famous. Denis Stock (Robert Pattinson from the Twilight movies) took some of the first candid and most iconic photographs of Dean before he was swallowed by the studio system. Dean ( Dane Dehaan, who James Franco has tweeted is stalking him since he’s made James Dean, Allan Ginsberg, and Green Goblin movies after Franco did) is an elusive and skittish character in this film. Its obvious Dean knows he’s special but is not really suited to being famous. He has come from small town in Indiana and life on a farm with a very supportive religious family.

Out of the Inferno is one of the most recent films written and directed by Danny and Oxide Pang. I must admit that I am a fan of the prolific duo, ever since I watched the original Bangkok Dangerous. Whether it be their intense dramatic thrillers such as The Detective or The Eye franchises, or their nightmarish dreamscapes in Sleepwalker or Re-Cycle (my personal favorite from the Pang Brothers). Unfortunately, Out of the Inferno did not come close to surpassing the “bar” of expectations when it comes to my enjoyment of a film from the Pang Brothers. The narrative involves two firefighter brothers who are dedicated to their line of work. One day they are given a choice by their uncle to either stay with their current station, or to come work as consultants for his company that is currently developing new firefighting technology. Naturally, one brother sees the lucrative future in the technology, and the other sees the nobility in the job he is currently working, so they go their separate ways. Years later, we return to the characters: one brother has immeasurable wealth as the head of the new fire technology company, and the other has gained rank within the fire department and is expecting a child with his wife. Due to the extreme heat on this particular day, a fire starts and quickly spreads within the giant building where the wealthier brother just so happens to be hosting a celebratory banquet.

Immediately I am reminded of Backdraft from 1991: two brothers who don’t necessarily get along and lots of fire and backdrafts. In fact, the amount of backdrafts in Out of the Inferno puts the number of backdrafts in Backdraft to shame, or any realistic fire for that matter. For the reader who may not know, a backdraft is a sudden surge of fire that rushes to consume the oxygen that is introduced to the vacuum of a burning room. Fires create vacuums in enclosed spaces, and when firefighters attempt to penetrate these spaces, the force at which the flame rushes outward can be fatal. So here are the ingredients to the mixed drink that is Out of the Inferno: one part sibling rivalry drama, two parts “old versus new” firefighting technologies, and enough backdrafts to singe the hair off of your head three times over. Sounds fun, right? Well, it probably would be if it felt cohesive.

Eric Jonrosh has written many weighty tomes full of lust and passion and desire and wanton abandon. Perhaps the greatest of these heavy and important contributions to literature is The Spoils of Babylon. He directed a 22-hour film himself that he hoped would reveal the real heart and soul and dark insides of the book. No one was ready for such an intense and unbridled examination of the human experience, so Jonrosh allowed the footage to be bastardized and submitted to television as a miniseries. Jonrosh himself introduces the multi-episode presentation, which now clocks in at two hours and 18 minutes. Jonrosh drinks freely of wine at his favorite restaurant as he is filmed and erratically rambles about the origins of his work and his copious experiences creating masterpieces.

I will now tell you that everything I have just told you is utter nonsense, or more accurately, an attempt to decipher the utter nonsense that is The Spoils of Babylon. It is calculated nonsense with a purpose. It is meant to explore the kind of programs that populated television in the 60’s and 70’s. It is a joint production of Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die website and the Independent Film Channel. Ferrell plays the corpulent and constantly intoxicated Jonrosh.

Who would have believed that you could do a situation comedy based on Nazi Germany and a group of POW’s in World War II? It wasn’t an easy sell. When Albert S. Ruddy first came up with the idea, it was a contemporary story about a group of guys in a normal U.S. prison. There were a lot of problems, mostly with the idea of making your main characters criminals. Of course, that’s not so much the problem today. But this was the 1960’s, and those kinds of “heroes” were not quite as accepted. Eventually the concept developed to put the characters in a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany during the World War II. Remember that we were only 20 years removed from the end of the war and the discovery of the concentration camps and all of the horrid images these things evoked in people. Any smart betting man would have given the chance of getting such a series to air at somewhere between zero and Hell freezing over. And when the show was pitched to CBS, that’s exactly what the execs had to say.

Somehow they were convinced enough to do a pilot episode. It was too funny to pass up, even with the more sober circumstances. By the end of that first season Hogan’s Heroes was one of the top rated shows on television. Larry Gelbart often credits the success of Hogan’s Heroes as the precedent that allowed shows like MASH to be sold. Suddenly it was OK to find laughter in such places. The show ran for six seasons from 1965 to 1971. The cast would remain completely intact throughout the show’s run. The show would also have to hold off a plagiarism suit from the writers of Stalag 17.

Despite how the History Channel continues to churn out more reality shows, the upside of this is that the shows they put out happen to be pretty entertaining.  When I first heard about Mountain Men, the first thing that came to mind was how dangerous was this show really going to get?  Sure, you can have people hunting in the snow, but would the producers of the show really allow their crew to sit back and record the “cast” as they continue to face dangerous and deadly situations over and over?  Well, the answer is yes, and the danger comes in various forms as the men of the show face off against Mother Nature in a blistering struggle for survival.

For those who may not be familiar with the show, it’s a pretty simple setup.  A film crew basically follows these “mountain men” as they struggle to survive in live off the land in the wildernesses of Alaska, Montana, North Carolina and New Mexico.  These are not guys who just live in a simple cabin in the middle of the woods; instead, these are the rare breed of man who survive on the food that they hunt and the pelts of fur that they can sell.  For those of you animal lovers, this may not be the show for you, since the hunting and skinning of the animals is a pretty common occurrence here, and the camera doesn’t look away.  If you can stomach some of these graphic images, the reward is some well-crafted storytelling of survival as well as some beautiful cinematography.