9/11/05 Quentin Tarantino Festival - Day 3 - Australia Night
Man, it is only day 3? Seems like it's been much longer. Guess that can be attributed to the 3.5 hours of sleep I've had in the last 40 hours. Before I kick off my coverage of Australia Night (which was great by the way), I've got a few housekeeping items to get out of the way.
Item #1: I found a few minutes tonight to mention my idea for a Silent Night, Deadly Night prequel focusing on the grandfather character to Tarantino. He told me he thought that was a cool idea, and long story short, my people are contacting his people next week to arrange brunch.
Item #2: Nicky Katt is a scary mother fucker. I have run into several famous people over the last few days, and thanks to QT's 'Were All Just Movie Geeks Here' mantra, everyone seems to mesh as one. Duritz, Judge, Linklater, and QT himself all can be seen laughing and talking movie talk with regular Joes like myself. Even the RZA seems very appoachable at this festival. But, (and don't get me wrong because I'm sure he's a nice guy) I haven't seen anyone talk to Katt. He's one of those actors that I really enjoy watching, but after seeing him sulk around the theater with this 'I Eat Babies for Breakfast' look on his face, I couldn't work up the nerve to talk to him. You know his character of Clint in Dazed & Confused? I'm now 99% sure he wasn't playing a role... Katt is a badass alpha-male mother fucker. It needed to be said.
With that out of the way, let's get on with the Dumb Distraction coverage of Australia night!
BMX Bandits (1983)
Directed by: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Starring: Nicole Kidman
Tarantino Introduction:
Tarantino takes the stage and launches right into a discussion of how Australian cinema is his number 2 favorite cinema behind Italian. This gets a few excited murmurs from the audience. Let's see how long it takes the internet fanboys to jump on the I Love Aussie-Movies Too bandwagon, shall we?
Anyway, Tarantino tells us how this movie is the Australian nostalgia movie equivalent of Goonies to the 20-somethings in that country. He also mentions that he actually hates the movie Goonies. The funny thing is, when Quentin told us last night that he hated Hitchcock & Psycho, no one batted an eye, but tonight's proclamation actually garned him quite a bit of booing and hissing. Guess we found out where the audience's true loyalties lie, huh?
Tarantino likes this movie quite a bit, but has trouble with the way the villains are presented. He tells us that the opening scene sets these guys up as really rough bank robbers... kind of like 'Australian Reservoir Dogs.' Unfortunately, since this was basically a kid's movie, the rest of the movie plays these guys as pure comedic relief.
This movie was programmed because the director, Brian Trenchard-Smith, is one of Tarantino's favorite Aussie directors. Trenchard-Smith directed great movies like Turkey Shoot and Dead-End Drive In, as well as some shitty movies like Leprechaun 3 & 4. Trenchard-Smith apparently had a knack for getting really interesting material to direct, and was the go-to guy for action movies.
In a funny moment, Tarantino also informs us that this is his favorite Kidman performance other than her role in The Others. "I'm not knocking her, alright? She's really fucking sweet in this movie!"
Trailers:
Last Wave (don't know anything about this movie other than the trailer features a really cool looking scene where a car stereo starts spewing out water), Dead-End Drive In (apparently this is a post-apocalypic movie where much of civilization is locked in a drive-in theater. The trailer looked really cool, and I am adding this to my 'Must Find' list. When the Show Ends... There's No Way Out!)
The Movie:
BMX Bandits, for those who haven't seen it, is about 3 BMX kids (including Nicole Kidman in her Annie-Coifed debut) who manage to take possession of a box of walkie talkies that the movie's villains desperately need in order to pull off a multi-million dollar heist. The movie never really explains why the walkie talkies are so essential, instead opting to merely have the head bad guy repeatedly tell us point blank "If we don't get those walkie talkies, we're dead!"
Most of the movie is scene after scene of Bad Guys chasing the 3 kids. At one point there's a 20+ minute chase scene where the bad guys pursue the BMXers all over town. Were talking through malls, boardwalks, water parks, construction sites... luckily there's ramps and narrow walkways all over town, which helpfully are more conducive to bicycles than cars or pedestrians.
The movie culminates in several dozen BMX kids attacking the bad guys en masse, armed with handfulls of flour(!), before finally capturing the villains in a giant Keystone Kops sequence involving a massive mound of foam and a jaunty piano ragtime score. I expected a silly kid's movie with this one, and my expectations were met.
Four Desperate Men (1959)
Directed by: Harry Watt
Tarantino Introduction:
Tarantino tells us that his assistant just received a text message from director Trenchard-Smith thanking him for screening BMX Bandits. Apparently Trenchard-Smith is currently filming a 'Lesbian Rambo Movie' in New Zealand starring Mariel Hemingway. You heard it here first folks.
Quentin launches into his praise of this movie's lead, Aldo Ray. Apparently, Ray is one of QT's all-time favorite leading men from the 50's. Something about him just screamed cool. He mentions Ray's big barrel chest, trademark flattop, and gravelly voice. Tarantino also tells us that when he was doing Pulp Fiction, he showed Bruce Willis several Aldo Ray movies to show him what he wanted Willis' character to be.
After being huge in the 50's, Aldo became a serious alcoholic, and the 'Patron Saint of Has-Been Actors.' It seems that in the 60's and on, Aldo would take any role that was offered to him, and because he continually worked small non-union exploitation films, he became the first big actor to get kicked out of SAG. Shortly after that, he also became the first big Hollywood actor to appear in a porno (a Western Porno called Sweet Savage, for which he won Best Actor at the 1979 Adult Film Association of America Awards.)
That being said, Tarantino said that he loved Ray in this movie, and that he was really excited about showing us this print.
Trailers:
High Rolling in a Hot Corvette (some sort of late 70's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid featuring An Outrageous But Loveable Pair) and Road Warrior.
The Movie:
I liked this movie quite a bit. When the movie starts, Aldo Ray has just broken out of prison with the help of his brother and two hired thugs. Apparently, Ray was a reformed criminal who had been wrongfully convicted on the word of an unreliable informant. Ray only wants to get out of jail long enough to arrange a new trial at which he will present evidence showing his innocence (which apparantly was legally possible at that time in Australia).
Unfortunately, his escape plan is botched, and the four men end up on a small island just off the shore of Sydney that holds a lighthouse. They take the lighthouse Custodian hostage, along with his wife and daughter. The police soon discover the men's presence of the island and lay seige to it. Over the course of the next few days the four men butt heads as they discover they all have different opinions on what their objective should be and through what means they should achieve it.
Four Desperate Men starts off slowly, but once they get to the island, things really start to click. As I was watching I was initally firmly behind Ray. He was unfairly imprisoned, and deserved a chance to tell his side of things. However, as the film progressed and Ray becomes more and more desperate, you realize that he's losing sight of what he's trying to accomplish. There's a very tangible 'Kill the Patient to Cure the Disease' vibe with this movie. By the time the film reaches it's climax Ray has become really unstable, and you can't help but root against him. Great characterization and tension in this movie, and definately one of the more mature movies we've seen thus far.
Riptide (1969)
Directed by: Quentin Lawrence & Peter Maxwell
Starring: Ty Hardin
Tarantino Introduction:
Australia had two major television exports in the 60s & 70s, neither of which ever made it to America. The first involved a kangaroo named Skippy, and the other was Riptide, a series that followed the adventures of a macho American boating enthusiast (played by Ty Hardin). Those crazy Aussies.
Before the trailers rolled we find out that Tim ran out of Australian trailers, so we're getting trailers from the Philippines. "Hey, at least we're staying in the Indian Ocean, OK?.'
Trailers:
Return of Captain Invincible - This is the only trailer we got this time, but it is one of the best we've seen. Apparently some sort of silly aging superhero movie featuring an insanely over-the-top performance by Christopher Lee. Must find this movie.
The Movie:
Pretty good episode that surprised me by featuring very little of the Ty Hardin character. However, I don't review TV episodes, so let's move on.
Dark Age (1987)
Directed by: Arch Nicholson
Starring: John Jarratt
Tarantino Introduction:
Lots of hype for this movie as Tarantino tells us that it is one of the best movies he'll be playing this week. That got my attention. At it's most simplistic this is a Killer Croc movie, but Quentin feels it is the best look at Aboriginal Culture he'd ever seen in a film. It is also unusual for movies in this genre in that the romantic subplot (which is normally the most suck-ass part of a Animal Attack film) actually has some human heart to it. Tarantino tells us that you actually end up caring what happens romantically between these two characters.
He takes a quick break from describing this movie to point out that every Australian movie... be it horror, comedy, or a sensitive coming of age drama... all have one thing in common: a car chase. He lauched into his impression of an Australian producer reading a script (Tarantino's Aussie accent is so brilliantly bad I was blown away): "Alright, we've got cameras, we've got cars... where's the fucking car chase? We've got sound, color... we've gotta have a bloody car chase!"
Luckily Dark Age has a car chase. And not just any car chase, but "one big shit-fuck of a car chase, alright? And there's a shit-fuck of a car crash... I'm talking principal characters doing fucking summersaults through the air so big you wonder how the fuck they walked away from it!"
We also got an interesting story about the lead in this movie, John Jarratt. Apparently when Tarantino was in Australia doing Kill Bill press, some journalists asked him who his favorite Australian actor was. Without hesitation Tarantino named John Jarratt. What Quentin didn't know was that although Jarratt had once been big in Australia, he had recently been most well known as the host of a Bob Villa-type handyman show. Predicably the next day entertainment rags all over the country ran the headline "HANDYMAN JARRATT HAS A HANDY FAN IN TARANTINO".
At the same time, the producer of Wolf Creek (a forthcoming horror film that Tarantino gushed about) had been trying to cast Jarratt as the villain, only to have the studio execs claim that Jarratt wouldn't work because he wasn't a big name anymore. Needless to say, Tarantino's backing lead to the producer getting his way, and Jarratt getting the lead villainous role in Wolf Creek. Chalk up one more career resurrection for QT.
We also get a gleeful QT boast on the quality of this print. He's pretty sure he got his hands on the Master Print from Embassy Home Video, and after seeing the film, I must say it was unbelievably beautiful. It literally looks like it was struck yesterday. Add in the fact that the cinematographer on this movie was Andrew Lesnie (Academy Award winner for his work on Fellowship of the Ring) and you've got a visually stunning movie.
Trailers:
The Muthers (a black lady pirate movie featuring The Most Beautiful Pirates to Ever Sink a Ship!), and Space Amoeba (a rubber monster extravaganza starring a Biologist, a Teacher, and a Guy Who Does Everything Wrong as an Industrial Spy).
The Movie:
Easily my favorite movie of the night. Tarantino was totally right in saying you really start to care about what happens to the main characters in this movie. Jarratt plays Steve Harris, an Aussie park ranger in charge of keeping an eye one the croc population. When a 100 year old 25 foot croc starts wreaking havoc with the natives, it's up to Harris to track it down and kill it.
However, Harris is friends with Oondabund, the tribal elder of the Aborigines. Oondabund informs Harris that this croc is sacred and must be protected at all costs. Harris must find a way to placate both the locals and his boss, all the while trying to avoid becoming croc food.
The dialogue, acting, and pacing of this movie are all top notch. There's also what Tarantino referred to as "a major movie flip, similar to From Dusk Till Dawn, only much smoother, where your allegiances totally change." While I didn't really think it was that big of a realignment, there is definately a cool subtle shift that occurs midway though the film.
So that was Day 3. I am eagerly looking forward to sleeping a full 8 (10?) hours tonight, and heading into Day 4, Documentary Night well rested. Come on back in 24 for all the intimate details on everything QT6.
- Micah
