Hello and welcome, as always, to another newsletter from me. Life continues to be hectic and strange though there are perceptible improvements on the ground here in Minneapolis. My experience can’t speak to that of so many others and I’m in a privileged position, but we’ve seen less activity from federal agents in my area and I do know some more vulnerable neighbors who are feeling better and more safe than they did a month ago. The economic impacts of this occupation are still very much ongoing and we have neighbors who need to be returned to their families. I encourage you to support mutual aid in Minnesota to the extent that you can. There are several resources to connect you to people doing great work in the area, but this is a good place to start: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
Personally, I’ve been very busy with my day job and not so busy with the new release/critic angle of my writing. This means that what bandwidth I do have to write has mostly been going into working on reviews for the next issue of Apache Revolver. I’m never going to claim to work quickly, but progress is being made. I did write a review of Crime 101 which I enjoyed and would recommend. Some noteworthy screenings for me in February were Doña Herlinda and Her Son which I got to see courtesy of Archives on Screen and their Il Cinema Ritrovato program. Mostly very charming queer romantic comedy but not one without some interesting social commentary/context. I enjoyed the movie and it was preceded by a catered reception from one of my favorite neighborhood spots so I was pretty thrilled. Another screening I really enjoyed was Black Samurai as part of Emagine’s Genre Brain Melt series. I’d never seen it before and was totally swept up by it’s not-quite-007 70s exploitation lunacy. I didn’t realize it was based on an entire series of books so that will be another rabbit hole to head down one day. Continuing my pursuit of AFI’s 100 Years 100 Movies list and considering that February is my birthday month, I loosely replicated Ron Swanson’s bday watch of The Bridge on the River Kwai. Unlike Swanson, I don’t eat meat and I’m not much of scotch drinker so I replaced those with some of my favorite takeout and a martini but I still loved the film regardless. War films are honestly some of my biggest blindspots but this is one I should have pursued much earlier. Pure breathtaking cinematic virtuosity that I will now make every attempt to see theatrically one day.
Speaking of birthdays and anniversaries, I rewatched 1995s The Hunted a day or two after the 29(!) year anniversary of its release. Hunted is one of the films that was playing theatrically at my first movie theater job and one that I must have seen dozens of times in piecemeal. It was an odd duck at that time like an 80s Cannon film escaped into the mid-90s and was given the professional polish that even genre programmers benefitted from during that decade. This makes more sense when you learn that writer/director J.F. Lawton wrote the script in the 80s and this project was resurrected after his success with Pretty Woman and Under Siege. I admired it then and would return to it or at least re-watch its much lauded train sequence throughout the years. Revisiting it now definitely shows some cheesiness and padding, but I still enjoy it; it looks tremendous, there are some standout action sequences, I love the score from famed Kodo taiko drummers, and there are some solid performances from both Asian-American and Japanese actors who much of the action centers around despite Christopher Lambert’s top billing. The NYT review that I stole the title for this post from called it a “slightly better than adequate B thriller” which is probably fair though watching Hunted now makes me nostalgic for a time when wide release genre films of this quality were more commonplace. Do yourself a favor and even if you never watch The Hunted as a whole, check out that train sequence!
My reading really took a hit in February and besides reading reviews/articles for my own writing, I only managed to finish Broken/Crime 101 and a collection of John Law comics from Will Eisner and Gary Chaloner. Winslow’s six novellas are propulsive, entertaining stuff and the last one is about Border Patrol agents which was an interesting read considering local events. As a crime fiction fan, it’s not unusual for me to admire creators who have a much closer and more nuanced relationship with law enforcement professionals than I do. Winslow, Michael Mann, and Dave Simon are just a few and while I don’t think they have rose-colored glasses about the realities of what policing looks like in this country, they still seem to perceive a level of professionalism that seems so miserably absent in the world I’m looking at. Maybe one day I’ll be able to cohere this train of thought into something worth writing. The Eisner John Law stories were largely repurposed into Spirit stories and will be familiar to fans, but the publication details were interesting and Eisner remains one of the great cartoonists. Chaloner’s take on the franchise goes a bit more hardboiled and was interesting to read too. Shame it didn’t continue longer.
The last thing I wanted to mention is that I was a guest again on the Trylove Podcast to discuss Midnight Express. This is another one of those long suffering watchlist denizens that I needed a nudge to finally cross off of my list and I’m so glad I did. I think the podcast turned out well and the guys always make for a fun discussion. I’m always happy to join them as long as they’ll have me.
Thanks again for reading this. I’d love to know what you’re watching or reading or what glaring omissions from your personal filmographies you’re finally catching up to. If you like what you see here, it would be cool if you subscribed or shared it with others.