ONE DAMNED DAY AT DAWN… DJANGO MEETS SARTANA! (1970) * ½

In the tradition of Frankenstein Meets Wolfman, Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, and Bambi Meets Godzilla, two screen titans meet face to face for the first time.  Too bad Sartana is nowhere to be found.  I guess One Damned Day at Dawn… Django Meets Sheriff Ronson didn’t have the same ring to it.  

Ronson (Fabio Testi) is the new sheriff in town.  Unfortunately, the town in question is Black Town, a nasty hive of lawlessness presided over by the nefarious Bud Wheeler (Dean Stratford).  Django (Hunt Powers) rides in looking to settle an old score with Wheeler, and Ronson winds up getting caught in the middle.   

Django Meets Sartana starts off okay, but it hits a wall during the long dull flashback scene where Testi learns about his predecessor’s demise.  From then on, the film never quite gets back on track.  The action comes in occasional spurts, which doesn’t help.  There’s a cool arm-wrestling scene where Wheeler and Testi put lit candles on each side of the table and try to burn their opponent’s hand.  The eventual fight scene between Django and Sartana… err… Ronson is better than the action found elsewhere in the movie, although it’s still not that great.

The big problem with One Damned Day at Dawn… Django Meets Sartana! is that it takes them all damned day to meet!  Another debit is that neither hero can quite hold your attention in their separate storylines (although I would give Testi the slight edge).  Incredibly enough, they are somehow less engaging when they’re together.  

AKA:  Django Meets Sartana.  AKA:  Django and Sartana.

DEVIL IN MISS JONES (1973) ****

The incomparable Georgina Spelvin became a household name when she starred in this still-powerful classic of X-rated cinema.  She plays Miss Jones, a lonely soul who commits suicide and winds up going to purgatory.  Abaco (John Clemens), the guy who runs the show says it’s a shame she killed herself because she was a shoo-in for Heaven.  Knowing it’s not quite her time yet and that she’ll never get into the pearly gates, the virginal Jones begs to go back to earth and live a sinful life.  Her teacher (Harry Reems) shows her how to act as a real slut, and once she’s fully trained, Miss Jones gets it on with a cavalcade of sex partners before heading off to her final destination.  

Spelvin’s performance is the reason Devil in Miss Jones still holds the power to captivate audiences some 46 years after its release.  She gets into her role with a fervor few adult actresses have.  Spelvin gets down and dirty with the best of them and is especially hot whenever she’s talking dirty during sex (which is quite often). 

Georgina does every sexual act you’d want to see an actress do in an adult film. She even does a few you might not want to see.  She makes love to herself with an enema hose, sticks grapes and bananas in her pussy, and in the film’s craziest scene, sucks off a snake!

This is truly a fearless performance.  It’s Spelvin’s go-for-broke acting that helps Devil in Miss Jones transcend the porno genre.  There are no half measures here.  Spelvin really put it out there for the world to see (in more ways than one).  It also doesn’t hurt that Gerard (Deep Throat) Damiano gives the film a touch of class with a few artsy bits here and there.  

Few classics of the genre really hold up to the test of time.  This is one of them.  I can’t believe it took me this long to see it.  (Yes, as a porn scholar, I have always been slightly ashamed I hadn’t seen it.)  The sequels got more outlandish as time went on, but for sheer sensuality, the original is hard to beat.

STANDOFF (2016) *** ½

Standoff has a thin, but admittedly gripping premise.  An assassin (Laurence Fishburne) chases a young girl (Ella Ballentine) who saw him perform a hit to the two-story farmhouse owned by the reclusive Carter (Thomas Jane).  Guns are drawn, shots are fired, and the two men lay at opposite ends of the stairwell bleeding; waiting for the other to make the next move.  

I’m a sucker for one-location movies.  I like seeing if the filmmakers can keep up the suspense out of what’s an essentially three-person play.  Part of the fun of Standoff is marveling how first-time director Adam Alleca (who wrote the Last House of the Left remake) is able to keep the premise crackling right along.  Just when you think he’s milked the plot for all it’s worth, he introduces a new wrinkle into the mix to keep you on your seat.

It also helps that the two leads are perfectly cast.  Jane always excels at these down and out types of roles, and this is no exception.  His character is a good man trying to do the right thing, even if it might get him killed, and because of his simple, heartfelt motivation, we instantly care about him.  Many actors would’ve had a hard time with the thinly written killer role, but Fishburne is more than up to the challenge making the character sinister yet entertaining to watch.  Seeing how the two men react to one another’s unexpected resourcefulness, especially when it becomes clear that Jane is more than just your average farmer, is yet another reason why Standoff stands heads and shoulders above your typical low budget actioner.  The performers find a lot of nuance in their characters and flesh them out to become fully three-dimensional, an impressive feat considering they spend a lot of time spouting exposition and barking orders.  Their final scenes even manage to be unexpectedly moving.

Alleca gets excellent mileage from the slim premise, (mostly) single setting, and the sterling performances.  The suspense only occasionally slows during the unnecessary scenes of a wet behind-the-ears deputy investigating Fishburne’s whereabouts.  These brief scenes could’ve easily been trimmed, and no one would’ve noticed.  When it stays on the staircase, Standoff stands out. 

ANGEL HAS FALLEN (2019) ***

Gerard Butler returns for his third go-round as the unstoppable, unflappable secret service agent Mike Banning.  In Olympus Has Fallen, the bad guys attacked The White House.  In London Has Fallen, they attacked… well… London.  This time out, the bad guys take the fight to Banning himself, framing him for the attempted assassination of the President (Morgan Freeman) and the death of his entire team.  It’s then up to Banning to clear his name and take down the elaborate conspiracy threatening to bring the nation to the brink of war.  

Angel Has Fallen is interesting as far as action sequels go.  Most opt for the bigger-is-better approach.  This one is content to take a more intimate look at its character and see what makes him tick.  Rarely to we get to see an action hero age appropriately or have realistic, humanizing problems, which is the real secret of the film’s success.  How many third entries in action franchises make social commentary… okay, so maybe that’s going too far… address such issues as opioid addiction, adequate concussion protocols, open carry policy, PTSD, and Russian collusion all within a two-hour span?  Seeing the filmmakers pay lip service to these issues helps to make Banning less of a Superman and more of a regular joe (compare his character development here to London Has Fallen where his big character scene was… putting together a crib) is novel enough to excuse some of its shortcomings.  

The biggest shortcoming has to be the lack of insane action sequences, which was London’s bread and butter.  This one has a silly drone strike sequence, and one or two inventive moments of Banning dispatching bad guys, but it pales in comparison to the previous entries in the series.  While I appreciate the attempts to ground Banning, grounding the action was a slight miscalculation on director Ric Roman Waugh’s part.  Since the man got his start directing the Shannon Whirry erotic thriller Exit, I’m able to cut him a little slack.

The upshot is that Nick Nolte comes along in the second half to give the movie a shot of adrenaline as Banning’s crazy old man who lives alone off the grid on a mountaintop to avoid the government.  You have never seen anyone act so grizzled in your life.  With his scraggly beard, crochety demeanor, and gravelly voice, he singlehandedly steals the picture.  New cast members such as Danny Huston, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Piper Perabo (replacing Radha Mitchell as Banning’s wife) get considerably less to do, but it hardly matters as Nolte and Butler’s verbal sparring gets so many laughs.

SUBLIME (2007) **

George (Tom Cavanagh) is a well-to-do businessman who seemingly has it all.  A nice house, a steady job, and a family that loves him.  On the day after his fortieth birthday, he goes to the hospital for a routine colonoscopy.  Much to his horror, there are several complications, not to mention more unnecessary (and/or botched) surgeries.  While trapped in his hospital bed, George begs his sexy day nurse (Kat Coiro) and the stern male nurse (named “Mandingo”, played by Welcome Back Kotter’s Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs) for answers, but they seem unwilling (or unable) to help.

Done right, this might have worked as a parable for middle-aged men’s fears about growing old and their reluctance to have age-appropriate medical exams.  The problem is that at nearly two hours, it’s way too long and drawn out to really work.  Rod Serling would’ve wrapped this thin premise up in a half hour on The Twilight Zone.  That’s not to say there aren’t one or two effective moments here.  (The big reveal of an unnecessary surgery would’ve made for a decent short film in its own right.)  However, there are just way too many supporting characters and flashbacks to a birthday party that get in the way.

Director Tony (Otis) Krantz tries to go for a Jacob’s Ladder type of mindfuck, but he lacks the panache or the unsettling imagery to properly pull it off.  It’s not a total loss because he does spring an occasional interesting wrinkle here and there that helps to occasionally inspire hope.  (The opening moments nicely capture the gallows humor patients resort to in an effort to hide their nervousness and uncertainty about going in for a delicate operation.)  The ending is kind of predictable, although if handled just so it might’ve been worthwhile.  As it turns out, the big reveal just kind of happens, which leaves something to be desired.  

A MAN CALLED JOE CLIFFORD (1970) ***

Anthony Steffen stars as Joe Clifford, an actor in the Wild West who inherits a goldmine from his deceased grandfather.  When he goes to collect, Joe finds his grandfather’s close friend is now in control of the mine.  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what happened and against the odds, Joe sets out to get revenge and reclaim the family goldmine.  What the bad guys don’t realize is that not only is Joe a skilled actor, he’s also a heck of a crack shot and has a knack for worming his way out of tight situations. 

Despite the unassuming title, A Man Called Joe Clifford is a little bit better than it has to be at nearly every turn.  Usually with Spaghetti Westerns, we just want some mindless violence, a cool antihero, and a badass theme song.  You get all that with Joe Clifford, and then some.  

The cool opening scene perfectly sets the tone.  Joe performs Hamlet in front of a crowd before blowing away a bunch of guys.  It’s especially funny because he starts out with, “To be or not to be” before the awesome Spaghetti Western theme cuts in and drowns out the rest of the soliloquy.  This was probably done to save dubbing expenses (or maybe not bore the audience with a lot of Shakespeare before getting down to the action), but it sure is cool.

Steffen is plenty cool as the calculating Clifford.  I particularly liked his use of theater costumes and make-up to disguise himself in order to get the drop on the bad guys.  The final act is where Joe really endears himself to the audience when he uses an assortment of dirty tricks and booby traps that would make Wile E. Coyote proud to turn himself into a one-man army.  

If you aren’t already a fan of Spaghetti Westerns, I can’t say A Man Called Joe Clifford will convert you.  For someone like me who’s sat through dozens of bad ones, I can appreciate one that colors outside the lines a bit.  Because of that, it’s worth getting to know A Man Called Joe Clifford.

AKA:  Apocalypse Joe.  AKA:  A Man Called Apocalypse Joe.

FUTURE WORLD (2018) * ½

James Franco has had an interesting career.  He went from starring on cult TV shows like Freaks and Geeks to appearing in big budget tentpoles like Spider-Man to showing up on soap operas like General Hospital.  As a director, he’s even more all over the place.  He’s directed documentaries, Lifetime movies, Oscar bait stuff, and… uh… this.  (Well, he co-directed it at any rate.)  Not only did Franco co-direct Future World, he also stars as the evil “Warlord”, who rides a motorcycle through the wasteland raping and terrorizing anyone unfortunate enough to survive the apocalypse.  

It’s a shame we don’t get as many of these post-apocalyptic movies like we used to.  After the success of Mad Max:  Fury Road I was hoping for a resurgence of the genre.  The star of The Bad Batch, one of the few recent post-apocalypse flicks, Suki Waterhouse co-stars as Ash, a top secret robo-babe Warlord finds in the desert.  He reprograms her not only to assassinate but be his personal concubine.  A wet behind the ears kid (Jeffrey Wahlberg) enters the wasteland looking for medicine for his dying mom (Lucy Liu) and is clearly no match for Warlord and his men.  Ash feels sorry for him, defies her programming, and helps him escape to “Drug Town” to find a cure for his mother.

The oddball cast is the only thing that really holds the picture together.  Franco gets a lot of mileage out of his shit-eating grin and general willingness to be unpleasant and sleazy.  Milla Jovovich is fun as the wild-eyed ruler of Drug Town who lords over a bunch of strung out junkies.  My favorite bit though was from Snoop Dogg who plays the owner of a strip club where the dancers wear electronic collars. 

Too bad Wahlberg makes for a terrible hero.  His anti-charisma helps to singlehandedly sink every scene he’s in.  Suki isn’t much better, but hey, she’s playing a robot, so I guess I can give her a free pass for not emoting.  

If there was some action here, it might not be so glaring, but the film just sort of spins its wheels for most of its running time.  What action we do get is rather weak and derivative.  For example, there’s a Thunderdome-type battle except that instead of taking place inside a badass metal arena, it’s nothing more than a drained, graffiti-laden swimming pool.  The big showdown between Franco and Jovovich is shockingly anticlimactic and the final confrontation between he and Waterhouse is somehow even worse.