Tag: Richard Lynch

William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration is tough to encapsulate in a review and pretty much impossible to tether to any specific genre. Picture a gum-ball machine full of primary coloured spheres and a few speckled throughout that are multicoloured and not just that but the colours seem to shift, migrate and elbow each other around the tiny globe like a scintillating oil spill. That’s not to say that the vast majority of single colour orbs don’t represent films that defy genre or think outside the box, it’s just that the multi hued mystery flavour ones head so far out past the stratosphere of genre playgrounds that they almost create a plane all their own. This is most definitely one such film.

Somewhere in the misty mountains of the Pacific Nortwest (actually filmed in Germany and Hungary) a giant, gothic castle plays host to a group of American ex-soldiers, committed to mental health treatment for PTSD and a host of other issues but left to roam free and act out their delusions more than anything else. Among them are Captain Billy Cutshaw (Scott Wilson), a once great astronaut who wigged out and lost his shit minutes away from a moon voyage launch, Frankie Reno (Jason Miller) who is recreating Shakespeare plays using all canine actors and a whole team of others with their own set of eccentricities. Together they are a classroom full of clowns who at first appear to be irreversible loonies, but as we know in human beings, that is ever solely the case. Stacy Keach is Colonel Vincent Kane, a distant, disturbed psychiatrist brought into treat them and he uses methods that range from complacent to empathetic to just as bizarre as their behaviour. I’ve just described general plot but that does nothing in imparting the dense, deep and often elusive philosophical ideas this wondrous film has to offer.

Blatty we all know as the author of The Exorcist, and he’s made it very clear that this is the spiritual sequel to that story. It’s a tough film to digest and unpack but infinitely rewarding for a few key reasons: He is adapting his own novel here, and as such we get an unfiltered glimpse of his creative ideas that cuts out all middle men and is the purest form of his work on the page. This was mostly financed by Pepsi of all people, who made a deal with him that if he filmed at least part of it in Hungary (where they had landlocked funds) that there’d be no interference on their part on anyone else’s. This allows a difficult, unconventional but extremely rewarding experience to unfold onscreen. Wilson is brilliant as the spooked astronaut, hiding his true nature behind a barrage of nonsensical banter and getting as down to earth as anyone could in a heartbreaking monologue that outlines exactly why he wouldn’t go to the moon and pinpoints a good portion of humanity’s collective existential dread in the process. Keach is hauntingly detached as Kane, a man obsessed with duality and the nature of good and evil in our world, it’s a tough character to nail down but the arc is secure in his hands. This is one of those ‘like nothing you’ve ever seen before’ films that can actually say it’s earned it. Part psychological thriller, part cerebral mood piece with touches of dark comedy, sympathy for the afflicted and ambition to understand the turmoil and alienation of the human spirit. Absolutely brilliant film.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Savage Dawn

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s time for some schlocky 80’s biker trash. Savage Dawn is a cheap, sleazy, exceedingly noisy, obnoxious piece of dustbowl highway exploitation and I love every minute of it. Lance Henriksen is stoic ex green beret Stryker who drifts past a small town to visit his old army buddy (George Kennedy). Also blowing through the area is a pack of evil, vicious bikers led by sadistic Pigiron (William Forsythe, living up to that name and then some). Stryker just wants to chill out and have beers with his ol’ bud but Pigiron & Co. have other plans and the film is basically a loose, untethered series of ultra-violent run-ins with the gang, while other weirdo backwoods locals run in and out of the scenes all silly billy. Henriksen is the only actor here to play it remotely seriously, keeping that stone faced glare stolidly in place and dishing out beatdowns left and right. Forsythe is downright maniacal here, doing one of the best versions of his ‘psycho snarling hick shtick’ and chewing scenery like an evil tornado of redneck rambunctiousness. This was the first time these two tussled in a biker picture and would reunite again for Stone Cold in the 90’s, but that’s another story. The late Richard Lynch shows up as a feeble, horn-dog local preacher who gets in the way and the great Karen Black has a memorable turn as the loopy local slut. This ain’t nothing but bottom of the barrel street grease, there’s no way around it. But the actors sell it and there’s enough of them letting off steam to make this enjoyable, albeit fairly WTF in places. Gotta keep in mind that gnarly little nuggets like this were commonplace back then and sometimes I miss em.

-Nate Hill

The Man in the Director’s Chair: An Interview with Michael Schroeder by Kent Hill

by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

It was owning a fast car that booked a young Michael Schroeder his first trip onto a film set. With Chief Dan George (The Outlaw Josey Wales) in the seat next to him, Michael was instructed to drive as fast as he could toward camera. He took this request literally.

While no one was injured, and though this early encounter did not go exactly according to plan, the crew assembled in cowboy hats and shorts seemed to be having a lot more fun than the group of aging lawyers with whom Schroeder had spent this previous evening. So he quit trying to be become a lawyer and ran of to join the movie business.

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He began his professional career as an assistant director working on such films as Revenge of the Ninja, Lambada, Highlander 2 and Guests of the Emperor. In 1988 he would take the director’s chair on Mortuary Academy. Fourteen features would follow, among them Dead On: Relentless 2, Angelina Jolie’s debut Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow, Cyborg 3 (apparently Schroeder’s most lamentable experience) and his career high and passion project, the wonderful Man in the Chair.

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He is a talented director who came to movies late – but he has since established himself as a consummate artiste of the motion picture. He was a font of great stories, optimism, on top of being an eloquent gentleman.

It is my privilege to present to you this interview.

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Michael Schroeder.

8+Cyborg+2

 

Making mashed potatoes with Walken: An Interview with Andrew Bryniarski by Kent Hill

by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews
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You might not know his name, but you’ve certainly seen his movies.

Andrew Bryniarski is a high-octane actor. His explosive and memorable performances stay with you. He is full-tilt, funny and furious. He has worked with an impressive array of Hollywood’s ‘big hitters’ like Tim Burton, Oliver Stone, John McTiernan, Michael Bay and John Singleton. He has starred alongside Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino, Raul Julia, Richard Lynch and Scooby Doo. He is beaten the shit out of Superman and made out with his girlfriend. Now if that is not an impressive resume, I don’t know what is.

All I can say is, I have done a number of interviews, but this one was a BLAST! Andy I feel has more great stories in him, only a few of which he was able to share over the couple of conversations we had. I would love this guy to sit down and write a ‘tell-all.’ The things that he has done, the places he has been, his experiences as a guy who was plucked out of obscurity and propelled from there to a Hollywood career that has spanned three decades, and has seen him do everything from sacking quarterbacks to wielding chainsaws, in that old Texas-massacre kinda way. It’s a tome that would be utterly enthralling.

The same enthusiasm that Andy applies to his work is apparent in his personality and his perspective. I get the impression there is no half-way with this man, and though it might seem that he has drifted from one grand adventure to another, there is a relentless dedication beneath the surface bravado that has been the catalyst behind his success.

It is always my intention to transcribe my interviews as, at times, the quality of the recording is not that great. But this is one of those times where you have to hear it from the man himself. No one does Andrew Bryniarski better than Andrew Bryniarski, unless of course it’s Andrew Bryniarski doing Christopher Walken (which I promise you’ll love.)

On that point, Andy sent me a message the day after our initial chat, saying that he had forgotten a line in his anecdote regarding Walken. It reads as follows:

Walken’s father was a baker and during the depression, there was a flour shortage so they used sawdust so they got ‘the rickets.’ By the time Chris Walken came along they had flour, so he was taller than his father. But Andy – he had orange juice.

It doesn’t make sense I know. But take note of the missing line (above here underlined) and listen to the incomparable Andrew Bryniarski tell it in his ‘awesome’ Christopher Walken voice…