All posts by Louis Fowler

Western

Buck and the Preacher (1972)

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When I was recently hospitalized, I became a fan of the Western genre. It harks back to the time I watched them with my father was I was a kid. Sure, I was more drawn to the anti-hero type, but it was one of the only times I bonded with him. One of his favorites was the 1972’s Buck and the Preacher, respectively starring Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte in the title roles.

Having been through emancipation, slaves try for a better life during westward expansion. Buck (Poitier) is a wagon master, trying to take a party to the west. However, they cross paths with a cadre of dirty racists — creeping parties of white pissants who try to take them down, maiming and killing all. Buck teams with the Preacher (Belafonte), doling out two-fisted vengeance along the way, with help from an Indigenous tribe. Out of sight!

Poitier and Belafonte are a dynamite duo, giving a new spin on the slightly unmatched platonic couplings; despite being a gruff loner, Poitier is no-nonsense, trying to get these people to their new home, while Belafonte is a religious huckster who goes against type.

What I really like is the film’s score by jazz musician Benny Carter. His twanging riffs have a real lustrous sheen in the wah-wah category, giving the whole soundtrack a real chugging atmosphere. Much like the film, I can’t say enough about it. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Okja (2017)

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When Okja premiered in 2017 on Netflix, many people maintained it’s about a girl and a “big pig”. However, I remembered a touching fable (foibles?) about a girl and a hippo-dog-elephant-pig. But I digress …

In an ideal farm in South Korea, young girl Mija (An Seo Hyun) cares for Okja, a wholesome hippo-dog-elephant-pig; he is taken to the big city, much like Babe: Pig in the City. But unlike Babe: Pig in the City, Okja is instead populated with pro-animal terrorists, pro-animal reality hosts and pro-animal factory farms.

Directed by the renowned Bong Joon Ho (Parasite), the film is notable for the extreme moments of scat jokes. But poop aside, it makes a children’s film in its own image. Also, the cast of Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano and Jake Gyllenhaal are playing to their characterized strengths — usually by stupid accents, but still.

What truly makes Okja a great film — which in turn makes Okja, a peaceful hippo-dog-elephant-pig, and how he is used — are the foot solders of this corporation, giving Okja a large boot to the head. It truly is unsettling about animal rights and how far we’d go.

Of course, it’s all undone by the time you crave a steak, but at least you know you tried. —Louis Fowler

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Action

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)

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The first two Maniac Cop flicks, while not great cinema, are pretty fun movies to waste the afternoon with. But Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence? Yeesh!

Mere hours after Matt Cordell, the undead maniac cop in question, is laid to rest, he’s resurrected by a voodoo priest for reasons never fully explained. Now Cordell skulks around corners and other badly lit areas for much of the film.

That leaves us with Robert Davi, back as Detective McKinney, throwing around terrible one-liners and even worse come-ons, mostly to an anonymous doctor treating his cop friend — and maniac cop paramour — who was recently shot by, of all people, Jackie Earle Haley and his pharmacist girlfriend.

Before you can scream “What the hell is going on here!” at your television set, somehow Davi and the doctor end up on city streets with Cordell driving a flaming machine of vehicular death. The film’s main selling point, while at first is pretty cool, wears out its welcome out after a repetitive few minutes as the running time is stretched as far as it can possibly go.

Over the course of my life, I had many chances to watch this Cop entry and never did, as something always seemed “off” about it. Apparently, I was right: The rights were bought up by the absolutely terrible Joel Soisson, with a threadbare plot by Larry Cohen — written while he was driving! — and not directed by William Lustig, who walked off after a day of shooting. It’s now credited to Alan Smithee.

In the end, the only people looking like they’re having any fun are Davi and the Maniac Cop, Robert Z’Dar. If I needed something positive to say, good for them. I hope those paychecks were all right, even though I doubt it. —Louis Fowler

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Horror

Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021)

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I’ve always found the criminal hijacking of television stations intriguing, usually from a scarier frame of mind than most people. To the creators, it’s a fractured art project; to me, it’s the knob-turning product of manipulative fear I find myself watching in the dark over and over again when I really shouldn’t.

Disagree with me if you must, but I think director Jacob Gentry and writers Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall seem to agree with me, as their flick, Broadcast Signal Intrusion, repeatedly hits every play button of unrealized fear that I’ve never been able to fully express to anyone else.

Hearkening back to the signal disruptions of years past such as the Max Headroom incident or the “I Feel Fantastic” video, here we find video archiver James (Harry Shum Jr.) as he’s found a few old broadcast interruptions of a mannequin in a strange room chanting something over and over again, played to great effect; disturbed, he ends up going down one rabbit-eared hole after another to find the smallest shred of truth behind it.

Pretty soon, creepy acolytes, disturbed video enthusiasts and the suicidal followers of these urban legends come out of the VHS woodwork under the guise of helping him out, but mostly end up terrorizing him. As this obsession stretches into his past and his long-lost wife, he appears to head this manic direction as well.

Whereas Broadcast Signal Intrusion seems to be desperately reaching for a finale that might — while not explaining everything — go for an incredibly outlandish ending that a bizarre film like this truly deserves. Sadly, it peters out in the most deflating way possible, leading me to want to spend my life feverishly hunting for the original ending.

But that’s crazy because that’s the original ending … I mean, it has to be, right? —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Comedy

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986)

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In the midst of a freebase freakout, famed comedian Jo Jo (Richard Pryor) blows up his living room, as you typically do. Somehow, he’s taken to the hospital where, as he lays dying, his astral form steps out of his dying body and he wanders naked through the parking lot; good thing a limo is there to pick him up and, I suppose, clothe him.

Over the next 90 minutes, we’re taken through Jo Jo’s (nonfictional) life, starting as a child growing up in a whorehouse, to a teenager leaving home to work in a comedy club. By this point, it’s easy to see that Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling is semi-autobiographical, as then we’re treated to the drink, the drugs and the women plaguing and, ultimately, destroying Jo Jo’s (and Pryor’s) life.

While this would be a disastrous hour-and-a-half funeral dirge for many, Pryor makes sure there are just as many laughs as there are tears — a real feat, especially given the sensitive subject matter. Towing the dreamlike line between real life and real fantasy, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling was a remarkably entertaining way for Pryor to tell his tale of comedic woe, especially in the wake of his self-immolation.

The lone film directed by Pryor, from a screenplay co-written with comedian Paul Mooney, it’s a lost cult classic that will probably never receive the timely due it truly deserves; as a matter of fact, I had to pick up Time-Life’s Ultimate Richard Pryor Collection to find a good copy of it. To be fair, I was going to get that anyway. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.