Junta Juleil's Top 100: #100-#96

Alright, here we go, ladies and gentlemen:

#100. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973, George Lucas)

Ah, how I love the late 50's, early 60's nostalgia pic, of which AMERICAN GRAFFITI is the beloved grandaddy. Though I and many of the genre's admirers cannot lay claim to having experienced the era firsthand, so many films which I deeply enjoy (THE WANDERERS, STAND BY ME, CHRISTINE, etc., etc.) use it as an effective template for imparting profound lessons about the nature of adulthood and what it means and feels like to be on the cusp of it, the cusp of that storied abyss. (They also use it as an effective template for cramming in as many great Oldies tunes as is humanly possible!) In retrospect, I can't help but feel that these films go even further, sort of imparting mythical lessons about what life was like Before Things Got Shitty, or the fairy-tale time When People Had Something To Look Forward To. Now perhaps I'm being somewhat facetious, but it certainly feels that way these days. Regardless, this is a humanist masterpiece with a vital young cast (Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Charles Martin Smith, Paul Le Mat, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, among others) and a bittersweet ending that speaks toward What Came Next. It's George Lucas (or was it really Marcia?) at his best.

#99. SOMEWHERE IN TIME (1980, Jeannot Szwarc)

I'm not exactly a fan of the 'Romance' genre by any means, but the genuine aura of tenderness and melancholy which flows forth from this movie can play my emotions like a piano. As he has proven again and again, Richard Matheson's mastery of time travel as a narrative device is rarely (if ever) matched; he tackles it not as science, but as a reverie, an abstraction, a wandering sense of nostalgia and regret. John Barry's score is a pleasure to the point of pain, and Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour's connectedness easily make us forget about pop culture personas like "Superman" and "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." A beautiful film, and one which didn't blow 'em away at the box office, but which has inspired a rabid cult following, including an extremely dedicated fan club which predates the Internet.

#98. RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985, Andrei Konchalovsky)

A prison escape film, of sorts, which passed through the hands of Akira Kurosawa, Paul Zindel, Eddie Bunker, and Golan & Globus before it became white-knuckle reality. RUNAWAY TRAIN is scraping steel, snowy vistas, blood and oil and grease and steam. The sheer, absolutely brutish intensity of Jon Voight and John P. Ryan is mind-blowing- we see men become animals, we see animals become men. Eric Roberts gets in on the action, too– this thing is a goddamn master's course in acting. One of the most potent, well-constructed thrillers in recent memory.

#97. THE PENALTY (1920, Wallace Worsley)

Some of you know that I'm quite the Lon Chaney devotee; I've said in the past "from his achievements in self-mutilation to his mind-blowing makeup effects to his mastery of the crazy-eye to his portrayals of mad jealousy, mangling frustration, and unfettered pathos; he assembled a vast body of work that really can't be matched for variety, commitment, or poignancy- and half of his films are lost!" The man's masochistic streak and tortured countenance are well-demonstrated here in THE PENALTY as he plays a frightening gangster named "Blizzard" whose legs were mistakenly amputated as a boy. The apparatus he uses to sell the effect is astounding, as are the nuances in his facial expressions, particularly given the fact that he was in enormous pain and hence prone to losing consciousness for the duration of the shoot. This is silent melodrama at its finest: whether it's slugging you in the gut or tugging at your heart-strings, you feel as if you've utterly surrendered yourself to the experience– it grabs you by the lapels and takes you for a ride, and isn't that what cinema's all about?

#96. ACE IN THE HOLE (1951, Billy Wilder)

Ah, the "newspaper flick." They're full of gritty, fast-talking men who're part-time wordsmiths and full-time swindlers, the sort of men who'd rather die than see some rival publication get the scoop. Enter Kirk Douglas, a gal-slappin' sonofabitch named Chuck Tatum who turns manipulatin' the masses into a spectator sport. I applaud this film and its ridiculous cynicism; it knew that that the days of aw, shucks truth-bending ("when the legend becomes fact, print the legend," anyone?) would one day give way to poisonous, THEY LIVE-grade distortions on a global scale. The alternate title was THE BIG CARNIVAL, and how goddamned right they were, what a big fucken carnival, indeed. As this list progresses, I'll likely say that a number of films seem prophetic in today's world (including this one!), but then again I suppose the repressers of the truth have always been sonsabitches; just who knew to what scale they'd end up takin' it? ACE IN THE HOLE is a movie that takes you by the throat, leads you toward the glory of "The Information Age," and shows you a few of the uglier pit-stops along the way. I also highly recommend: SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and NETWORK.

Coming up next...some Carpy, some Polanski, and possibly the biggest, baddest tear-jerker of all time!

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Television Review: TRILOGY OF TERROR (1975, Dan Curtis)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 72 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Karen Black, Karen Black, Karen Black, Karen Black, Robert Burton (LASSIE, Karen Black's then-husband), Gregory Harrison (TRAPPER JOHN, M.D.; RAZORBACK), Jim Storm (DARK SHADOWS, ONE LIFE TO LIVE), George Gaynes (PUNKY BREWSTER, TOOTSIE). Based on stories by Richard Matheson. Special effects by Erik von Buelow (THE FOOD OF THE GODS, EMPIRE OF THE ANTS).
Tag-line: None.
Best one-liner: "This can't be happening! This can't be happening!"

Every once in a while, you have one of those rough days at work. You're a high-powered television executive, and the office is gettin' ya down. Some guys from downstairs are goin' out for happy hour, and you resolve to join them for just one. One turns into two, you're havin' a fine time of it, two turns into three, then four, and the next thing you know, you wake up at your desk realizing you've greenlit a horror picture where Karen Black plays four roles.

It takes brass balls to make a picture like (the Richard Matheson-penned and Dan Curtis-directed) TRILOGY OF TERROR. Seriously- you're in an 'ABC movie-of-the-week' scenario and the temptation must be to make the simplest, dumbest, most kiddie-friendly fare imaginable. The last thing you need is a thousand calls to the network bustin' your balls about some inappropriate content or the like. So we get a horror triptych which tackles such issues as: inappropriate student-teacher relationships, roofies and date rape, sexual blackmail, gang rape, incest, the failings of the mental health system, and much, much more. I remarked to my girlfriend as we watched this- Holy God, I'd hate to have been a parent in 1975, hosting a Saturday night creature-feature slumber party for the neighborhood kiddies, and having to field these awkward questions during commercial breaks, questions like 'what's a roofie' and 'why was he photographing her in that hotel room' and 'what does it mean when he says he has a bunch of friends he'd like her to meet?'

She surmised that playing dumb and hoping they'd forget about it would be in order, and I had to agree. But the purpose of my bringing this up is not some priggish rant: I applaud TRILOGY OF TERROR for refusing to censor itself, and, like so many imaginative films of the 70's and 80's, rejecting the idea that horror films for children and adults are necessarily mutually exclusive.

The first segment, "Julie," which could have easily been entitled "Hot for Teacher" if they weren't going with the whole character name thing, is about a fuddy-duddy female professor and the amorous Big Man on Campus who only wants to take her out on the town and drug her and photograph her in compromising positions and blackmail her and enter into a sexually extortive relationship.


As the collegiate lothario in question, Black's then-husband Robert Burton delivers a legendarily sleazy performance combining the creepy leer of Gary Busey with the pompousness of an 80's teen movie villain.



Black retorts by exuding pathos in a nuanced performance as the sad sack teacher, overwhelmed by the fiendishness of it all. Now, as is often the case with horror omnibuses, the ending of a promising segment will be 'Ye Olde Switch-a-roo,' a twist ending so ludicrous that it may force you to mock the piece as a whole. While "Julie" certainly is done no favors by its looney finale, it's a silly enough turnaround that I am wholeheartedly able to support it.

The next segment, "Millicent and Therese" sees Karen Black really entering tour-de-force mode. As both halves of a pair of twisted sisters who each think the other is evil and insane, Black prompts me to quote Loverboy in assessing her performance: "the kid is hot tonight."

Millicent is an old maid in the vein of Katherine Hepburn who dresses like an extra from THE CRUCIBLE and wears glasses capable of sizzlin' ants right off the sidewalk.


She accuses her sister Therese of practicing demonology, pornography, incest, Satanism, voodoo, and of being a chippy.

Black plays Therese as an over-the-top blonde wig wearing floozy, and this was definitely the point in the film when I realized that I was going to love every minute of it.

She sweet-talks her psychiatrist ("You know you're a very handsome man, Doctor..."), breaks little girls' dollies, and slinks around the house like a wacko, ill-advised caricature of female sexuality.

Again, the finale involves the Ye Olde Switch-a-roo, and a glaring plot hole which I will not specifically address should sink the whole thing, but instead you're left in a complete state of bemusement, because said finale also involves a voodoo doll embellished quite wonderfully with fingernails and rhinestones.

In the final- and most notorious- segment, "Amelia," Black plays a newly independent young lady with mommy issues who comes into possession of a Zuni fetish doll that wastes no time in awakening, stalking her about the apartment, stabbing her ankles, biting her legs, and all that jazz.

With gnashing teeth and sunken eyes, the doll itself is extremely freaky and may have inspired everything from BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL to CHILD'S PLAY. This segment seems to have scarred an entire generation of youngsters, but in hindsight, it's wildly entertaining and often hilarious. A lot of the credit belongs to voice actor extraordinaire, Walker Edmiston (THE FLINTSTONES, H.R. PUFNSTUF) whose constant, high-pitched "HUMMANA HUMMANA NUM NUM NUM NUM YAH YAH YAH YAH YAAHHHHHHHHs" fuse with the stilted movements of the tiny puppet to create one of the most surreal and enjoyable setpieces ever to grace our televisions.



Because the production schedule required such a quick turnaround, the special effect often leaves a little bit to be desired (i.e., the Bela Lugosi BRIDE OF THE MONSTER school of special effects, whereupon the performer holds the rubbery monster to their own neck and flails), but this only works in the film's favor. Regardless, Black holds it all together with élan: she is the only human character in the segment, and her connection to her character's many trials is palpable. Ultimately my favorite segment of the three, "Amelia" even pulls of a Switcharoo ending that's bold, a little scary, and actually feels like an appropriate payoff!

Four stars.

-Sean Gill

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