Category Archives: Crime

The Black Bird Goes Beaky over Rampart

June 18, 2012   The Black Bird   2 Comments
rampartposter

The Black Bird reviews Rampart (2011)

Unfortunately, this review is going to start off negative. Be forewarned! But it isn’t about the flick itself. Nope, the movie itself definitely held my attention.

I’m going to gripe about festival organization. Supposedly Killer Joe was booked out at the Sydney Film Fest, but I actually got my promo tickets promptly. Pleasantly surprised in that instance. Was told there’d be plenty of space in Rampart, so I showed up at the quaintly archaic State Theatre with about ten minutes to spare. I was keen to see the flick. I’m a James Ellroy nut, and he co-scripted. Got jerked/stuffed around for those ten minute spare minutes over my promo pass. Had to go back to the box office and wait for them to ring festival HQ and sort out my tickets, even though there were literally scores of seats still available. As a result, I missed the opening of the movie, including the credits. Usually, if I miss even a few minutes at the movies it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. But Rampart was entertaining enough to allow me to see past that sore spot.

Woody Harrelson does a capable job as Dave Brown, a womanizing, viagra popping, booze binging LAPD officer. Brown is at the center of a salacious 1990s scandal. He has killed a past date rape suspect in the line of duty (or so he says), continues to use excessive force, then goes over the edge with outright murder in another flare-up.

The pathos of “Date Rape” Dave Brown’s family interaction plays a pivotal part in the flick. I see facets of “Date Rape” Dave in Ellroy’s past protagonist Lloyd Hopkins in the Demon Dog’s modern SoCal noir trilogy. It would seem that Ellroy is well accustomed to the innards of police brutality and corruption. The seedy, seamy and sordid elements litter his 1940s to ’50s L.A. Quartet, just as they ooze onto the big screen in Rampart.

Thankfully, Rampart focuses more on humanity than technological trappings of the current cinema. If there was any CGI nonsense, I missed it. Real stunt action and true to life familial dysfunction. Dysfunction? How is it dysfunction if it’s so widespread? Obviously Ellroy knows this and allows us to follow this belief through dialogue and character interaction. Date Rape Dave’s reaction to discovering that one of his teenage daughters is a rabid feminist with the hots for other chicks is dyed in the wool Ellroy. Our protagonist is so diametrically opposed to the situation and will never be able to comprehend the why of it. While “Date Rape” Dave and his extra-marital fling Helen (Brie Larson) are fairly complex characters, the others come off a bit on the flat side. If Date Rape is a chauvinist pig, Helen is the predatory arachnoid princess! Sigourney Weaver plays a D.A. investigator trying to rein in “Date Rape” Dave’s offensive physical brutality. He is all about kicking ass and asking questions later. For the brief time Weaver’s on screen, she’s a semi-strong female character. Ned Beatty, a leftover from Hollyweird of a bygone age, cameos as Date Rape’s LAPD alumni confidant and turncoat.

James Ellroy - modern master crime fictionist!

Demon Dawg of Destruction!

In truly tasteless noir fashion (or delicious, depending on your bent), Officer Brown is on a path of self-destruction. A gritty gross-out sequence involves “Date Rape” descending into madness on a night of meth-fueled sadomasochist clubbing. Some  noise spikes are aptly placed to freak the audience near the finale. Perhaps the doof-doof of techno music fits the S&M dungeon, but it  just doesn’t smack of the James Ellroy afficionados of noir nastiness and exploitation cinema have come to adore. One supposes the director had to make Rampart  “commercially viable” in today’s marketplace. One gets the feeling that the modern touches are mostly courtesy of Ellroy’s collaborator, director Oren Moverman. Would it be possible for corporate Hollywood to leave anachronistic Ellroy to his own devices?! One has to wonder. I’d personally love to see it happen.

The verdict is in. Rampart held my attention, and was enjoyable, save for the cop-out closing. If the opening resolves this issue, maybe I can stand corrected. Otherwise, it’s just another day in “Date Rape” Dave’s El Lay dog-eat-dog delirium.

I’m open to appeals if the distributor wants to chuck the ole Black Bird a promo, ya know?

 

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Killer Joe Slays ‘em in Sydney

June 10, 2012   The Black Bird   2 Comments
Killer Joe Movie Poster

The Black Bird’s Crime Film Review – Killer Joe

Tracy Letts and William Friedkin

Screenwriter and Director

Linda Blair in The Exorcist

Care for some split pea soup, people?

A Texas trailer trash tour de force of epic proportions! Who could possibly expect a film like this to issue forth from a 76-year old director? Well, when said filmmaker is William Friedkin (of The Exorcist and French Connection acclaim), maybe it’s understandable. Remember the oh-so-indecent crucifix scene from Friedkin’s 1974 opus?  If that held you on the edge of your faux velvet seat in the revival grindhouse in its re-release, so will the superb uncensored shenanigans in Killer Joe. The NC-17 rating has prevented the flick from major distro in the U.S. But in my personal heyday of movie-going (the anxious eighties), this one would’ve been pegged an R. No doubt in my mind, folks! A double standard in that respect. A bit of well-placed full-frontal and some violence is necessary in my opinion, if you’re to successfully concoct a believable and gritty crime flick in 2012.

William Friedkin in 1973

Hip 'n' happenin' Friedkin

William Friedkin 2011

Friedkin now

Though Friedkin often scripts his own flicks, this one comes courtesy of Tracy Letts, adapted from his early nineties play of the same title. On a background binge, one discovers that Letts is originally from Oklahoma, so it’s no surprise that his milieu is similar to Okie murder fiction master Jim Thompson. Plot-wise, Killer Joe effectively skulks the same po’ folk hell-holes as Thompson triumphed with from the mid 1940s to 1960s. Kill mama for the insurance money! One could go as far as to say that if you removed the modern conveniences of cell phones, that this flick could easily be set forty years in the past. A particularly nostalgic appeal to this one, despite it being current. Heavy on lighting and inventive camera angles instead of CGI and high-speed digital editing.

Before we reach the one-minute mark we’re greeted—in a Dallas downpour—at the motor home door by the fuzzy seventies pubes of Sharla Smith (portrayed perfectly by Gina Gershon). In for a wild ride and then some! The type of exploitation spills and thrills of the kind that have been sorely missed in large quantities on the silver screen for nearly

Emile Hirsch (left) and Matthew McConaughey

Hired to hit mama

three decades. You’d have to go back to the early eighties, to something like Chained Heat (featuring Exorcist fave Linda Blair), to size up the sort of appeal Killer Joe has. A perfect combination of over the top brutality, mordantly horrific humor and dastardly accurate dialogue. Maybe the characters are actually more like celluloid caricatures—typical and cliché—the type you’d expect to find paying with a pocketful of pennies at the local Walmart or in the KFC drive-thru. But it’s a thoroughly enjoyable experience. If you’re merely a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s contemporary chronicles of debauchery and have never prowled the backwaters (say reading David Goodis’ poetry of the gutter or watching Charles Bronson as the countrified bad-ass in Mr. Majestyk) you will dig Killer Joe. Friedkin and Letts let loose in similar fashion to past forays by scrivener Elmore Leonard and Italian sleaze/gore hound Umberto Lenzi (think Paranoia).

Texas trailer trash types

The family that slays together stays together!

Casting is dead-on. Matthew McConaughey is the lead, a sheriff’s deputy who does hits for hire on the side, and he assumes the role to the point of being a shoe-in for Thompson’s character Lou Ford (protagonist of The Killer Inside Me). Could kill you with kindness, then turn around and slay you with sadism! Thomas Haden Church couldn’t possibly be more of a dunderhead white trash papa, Emile Hirsch as the greasy drug dealing kid and Juno Temple as jailbait princess of Killer Joe Cooper’s dreams.

What’re you waiting for? Go grab that family-size bucket of deep-fried exploitation goodness!

Killer Joe

Juno Temple the trailer trash temptress!

Trailer trash temptress!

And what about the Sydney Film Festival itself? Saw Killer Joe on the second night, and was quite impressed with the fact that the SFF turned the lower Town Hall into a space to imbibe a bit of booze, mingle and view short films and celeb photos. Their willingness to help accommodate a newish site like WoW was commendable. (Sure, WoW is only an infant, but your humble Black Bird has been around the cult cinema block a few times!) I was worried that I wasn’t going to get the hook-up for Killer Joe, however, the tickets came through despite a warning that seating was already gone. No delays, no bullshit for this screening! -The Black Bird

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The Black Dahlia Avenger Rides Again

May 10, 2012   The Black Bird   3 Comments
bdafeatureimage

 

Black Dahlia Avenger II by Steve Hodel

Steve Hodel's third book

 

The Black Bird’s True Crime Book Review:
Steve Hodel’s Black Dahlia Avenger II

It goes without saying that I’m obsessed with the murder of beautiful, young Elizabeth Short – Los Angeles’ Black Dahlia Murder case of 1947. Just take a peek at my WoW bio. I admit that, even though I don’t agree with every theory presented, I simply have to read each book published on the subject. A coupla good examples: I repeatedly refer back to John Gilmore’s Severed or the chapter in Craig Rice’s 45 Murderers. I especially love prowling through my vast collection of original newspaper clippings. You see, I never stick all my eggs in one basket as far as suspects go.

So it was, friends and fiends, that my eyes bulged when I read the news: former LAPD detective Steve Hodel, author of Black Dahlia Avenger and Most Evil, was publishing a third book on the alleged criminal exploits of his father, Dr. George Hill Hodel. I confess that I rather liked the first BDA. It was a professional affair, save for Hodel’s propensity to phrase things in a manner like “Then dad did [blank]…” As if every last drop was established fact. Dr. George Hodel, for the uninitiated, was a wealthy SoCal doctor who specialized in venereal disease control, and lover of bohemian and surrealist art.  Another confession: I was increasingly sceptical of Steve Hodel’s allegations in his second exposé, Most Evil. That he whole-heartedly believed his dad was also the Zodiac killer of 1960s to Seventies NoCal infamy. I still devoured the book, and found it well-presented compared to other Dahlia tomes like Jacque Daniels’ Curse of the Black Dahlia (with its shoddy design, layout and proofreading). There’s much to be said for a pro layout and making certain there are no grievous typos and grammar blunders, especially in a print-on-demand book (BDA II is POD). On the whole, BDA doesn’t suffer from the usual textual and layout foibles of many POD titles.

Elizabeth Short at Marshall High School, Oct. 1946

Elizabeth Short at Marshall High School, Oct. 1946

 

Dr. George Hill Hodel

Is he the Avenger?

Another humongous “true crime” outing, BDA focuses slightly less on the Zodiac than Most Evil. The focal point of BDA II remains George Hodel. Elizabeth Short is dealt with almost peripherally, mainly as mentioned mostly as a victim and in the investigation of her murder. Details of her life are few and far between. I was hoping–if the title itself was any indication–to read more background on Beth Short herself. Nope! Hodel has been gracious enough with his past readers in sharing many new updates free of charge through blogs and FAQs on his website. I was likewise hoping that he wouldn’t repeat himself in BDA II, heaping much material available online on our plates. I suppose this may work fine for the casual crime enthusiast who is reading BDA II with little retention of Hodel’s previous two books or the case itself. Hodel belabors himself and us w What about the compulsive tendencies of the “Dahliaphile” type folks out there? The ones who pore over every nook and cranny of minutiae? It will most likely be a drawback for the obsessed (like me!).  Maybe it was necessary to repeat for those with short attention spans. Also, when you’re bibliomaniac (like your humble Black Bird), you prefer to refer back to a book than constantly hooked up to electronic gadgetry. In that respect, having the blog and FAQ items in BDA II can be looked upon as a benefit. I consider both sides of the coin.

There are a few intriguing and not-so repetitive sections of BDA II. One contains letters from Steve Hodel’s mother, Dorothy (Harvey Huston) Hodel, to her ex-husband iconic director John Huston, many mentioning danger she perceived from her most recent ex, George. Another interesting bit  fleshes out the life of Madi (or Mattie) Comfort, George Hodel’s black mistress.  Comfort revealed her secret before she passed away in the mid 2000s – that she believed George Hodel did indeed kill Elizabeth Short. Another section introduced a bit of new info from a well-known surrealist photographer (now deceased), which furthers the possibility that foul things were afoot at the gaudy, exotic  Lloyd Wright-built Sowden house – occupied by the suave Dr. Hodel in the mid 1940s – at 5121 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, CA.

Lloyd Wright Sowden House

Murder Mansion?

My verdict? Well, I could do without all of the statements Steve Hodel makes beginning with the phrases “we now know that” or “we know that.” Do we really know for sure? How much is hearsay, especially in the case of unrecorded conversations with deceased people? I wish the public could finally know the full truth about Beth Short’s murder, the many other women slain in L.A. throughout the 1940s, the Zodiac, etc. But I’m not so certain yet that I can point my finger at any one suspect, much less George Hodel. I consider Hodel, along with others. I’m a completist, and I recommend others like me pick this puppy up. If you enjoy reading about seedy, seamy L.A. corruption, there are plenty of juicy details. I’ve come away from BDA II feeling, more than ever, that George Hodel was definitely involved in some very shady affairs. I’m convinced he molested his own daughter (probably paid off the authorities to be proven not-guilty), performed abortions when they were illegal in L.A. (although I feel women should always have the choice!) and committed insurance fraud. Murder? I don’t know about that just yet. Perhaps time will tell. Perhaps not!

P.S. I invite WoW readers to share their opinion on Steve Hodel’s books, the Black Dahlia case, the so-called L.A. Lone Women Murders of the 1940s, the Zodiac, etc.

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