Taxi to the Dark Side

With a title like Taxi to the Dark Side, you know it’s not going to be a light-and-fluffy film, but it’s a film that needed to be made, and should be seen by everyone.

The measure of a nation is how well it lives up to its ideals in the worst of times. 9/11 was that trial for America, and America failed. If you do not believe that former U.S. president George W. Bush, former vice president Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, White House Council John Yoo, and at least a half dozen other members of the Bush Administration are guilty of war crimes, you must see this documentary.

Even if you suspect they do, but have lingering doubts – you must see this documentary.

And especially if you don’t know either way, and know nothing about this issue – you must see this documentary.

This is not some sort of Michael Moore propaganda piece. This transcends partisan politics. It deals with a broader issue. It focuses on the treatment of just one detainee and will probably make you sick to your stomach – if you can stomach it at all. And then reminds you that this happened not to just one guy, but to 83,000 others too.

Hell yes, its difficult to watch - there is graphic photos of torture – but is that an excuse not to watch it? The fact is they are presented because showing them is necessary to fully understand the extent of what went on. And guess what? If you are an American, you damn well should sit through this, because you are guilty too – this is what your elected officials did.

Of course when word finally got out, and they got blowback for it, in an outrageous act of cowardice, they left their own subordinates out to dry.

The film makes the case, clearly, efficiently and thoroughly. Which makes it not only an excellent documentary, but an important one too.

Once

Once, is the kind of independent film that could only be an independent film – a film about musicians with no ‘hit’ songs on the soundtrack. A character study, with no A-list stars (or any stars for that matter).

It’s a touching, film about a man with talent but no direction, and a woman who sets him off in the right direction. It is a love story without the love; romantic with out the romance – the man, known only as ‘guy’ in the story, and the woman, known only as ‘girl’ are involved only insofar as the music goes. They aren’t a couple.

With all the music actually written by the two leads, there is a genuineness to the story. It is a simple story, simply told, and than Heavens there are still some films like this.

Charles Bronson

Charles Bronson; we all know him, we love him. As popular in Europe and Asia as he was in the U.S., he was the one Hollywood tough guy actor that the whole world accepted. Trouble is, you've already seen 'Once Upon a Time in the West' & 'The Great Escape'. Where do you go from there? Well, I want to call your attention to two of Charles Bronson's lesser known films. They aren't high art by any stretch of the imagination, but they're worth seeking out if you dig movies where Charles Bronson does what he does best - speak in a gravely voice and kick butt.



First, check out 'The Mechanic' (also known as 'Killer of Killers'). No, it's not about an automotive specialist who's pushed too the brink. A mechanic is the mob code word for a hit man. And that's what Charles Bronson plays here. But it's a ruthless business, and as he gets older he sees the benefit of taking on a younger partner, in this case the son of a man he bumped off, played by Jan-Michael Vincent (remember him?). But as things heat up, it becomes clear that sooner or later one of them is going to have to go. This film is from the early 70s (1972), so the pacing may be a little slow for the X-Box generation, and while it's no 'Godfather' or 'French Connection', it certainly holds it's own when compared to the lower budget crime films of the day. Catch this original before it's butchered in a remake later this year.



The year before 'First Blood' would launch Stallone's second most popular series (after the 'Rocky' films), Charles Bronson starred in 'Death Hunt' that was either an incredible coincidence, or a movie that was directly ripped off by the makers of that first Rambo film. Instead of a Vietnam vet, here we have Charles Bronson as a Canadian fur trapper, and instead of a Sheriff, we have Lee Marvin and Carl Weathers as Mounties that are sworn to bring him in. The backdrop here is the incredibly scenic Canadian Rockies rather than the Pacific Northwest wilderness of 'First Blood', but otherwise the plot is essentially the same. One man pits his wilderness survival skills against overwhelming numbers.

I'm not saying that either of these films is the cream of the crop when it comes to Bronson's career, but I'm assuming you've already seen 'The Magnificent Seven' and the entire 'Death Wish' series more times than you can count. Why not kick back with a beer and check out some of the other films old 'Il Bruto' made?

The Spirit - is it as bad as the reviews? Well, yes... and no.

First, let's get this out of the way: I'm a comic book fan. But, I was never a fan of 'The Spirit', because despite what you might have heard, The Spirit is NOT a comic book movie.

Despite how it was marketed, The Spirit is not Batman, and is in fact, fairly faithful to it's roots. You see, Will Eisner's The Spirit comes straight out of the Sunday funnies, and as such has more in common with comic strips like 'Popeye' and 'Dick Tracy' than comic books.

So, not surprisingly, the closest big screen comparisons to The Spirit is Robert Altman's Popeye, and Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy - namely, live action cartoons.

Now, viewed as the live action equivalent of the Road Runner, The Spirit doesn't look so bad - certainly not as bad as most of the critic reviews it got. Yes, it's long on style and short on substance, but in some ways is longer on substance than the other two Frank Miller productions to hit the big screen (the overrated The 300 and Sin City). And, yes, it's another movie of actors acting in front of green screens and not particularly strongly directed - but plotwise, it holds up better than some of the other ventures of that ilk (Casshern, Sky Captain and the World of Tommorow, etc.).

But like Popeye and Dick Tracy, it's also of about the same quality of those movies - an interesting diversion, full of eye candy, but not a movie you'd want to see over and over again. Chances are if you like those two films you'll like this one, and if you hated them (like most critics), you'll hate this too.

But, the rapid fire film noir dialog, cartoony look, and the deadpan gags can make it worth a viewing, provided you're in the right frame of mind.

The Gits

When I was still in high school, a bunch of friends and I piled into a car for a short road trip from Cincinnati, OH to Antioch College in nearby Yellow Springs, OH. There I saw a band that blew me away. That band was called ‘The Gits’.

It’s hard for people to understand today just how vibrant the music scene was between the mid 80s to the early 90s. A lot of music today sounds so stale by comparison. Those of us in Generation X have to be the first generation to not only rock harder than our parents but ALSO rock harder than our kids. And even at a time when so many good bands were coming out, The Gits stood out.

When Gits lead singer Mia Zapata was found brutally raped and murdered on a desolate Seattle street in 1993 it didn’t just end that band, it ended an entire music scene.

The first half of the movie is a rockumentary and a pretty damn good one too. It instantly transported me back to the days of drunken parties with bands playing in basements and backyards that was the era of DIY music making. Chronicling a band from it’s inception to it’s zenith. Even though most of the best band footage is culled from the grunge expose 'Hype!', it's great seeing it again 15 years later.

And right when you hit the meteoric midpoint of the film, the revelation of Mia’s murder (even when you know it’s coming) hits you like a sucker punch to the gut. The second half of the film unravels like a true crime murder mystery. Will Mia’s killer ever be found?

But the film has an outlook that was very in keeping with Zapata’s life and music – never afraid to look at the dark side of things without getting overly depressing or morose. It celebrates the exuberance and wonder of the artists and that special time now two decades behind us that seems like it was only yesterday.