L.A. Losers – BLOOD AND CONCRETE

Do you know who’s underrated?  Billy Zane.  I’ve already gushed about him in my DEMON KNIGHT piece, and I will continue now.  Zane is one of those actors who can be instantly likable, even when playing a force of evil bent on destroying humanity.  All he has to do is flash that disarming “aw shucks” smile of his and you just want to hang out with the guy.  It’s a pity that most of the world knows him from his biggest role, the rich, possessive, joyless villain from TITANIC, a character completely devoid of Zane’s natural charisma.  Fortunately, his charm is on full display in 1991’s darkly comic loser love story, BLOOD AND CONCRETE.

The Capsule:

Small time crook Joey Turks (Billy Zane) is having another in a long line of bad days.  First, his foul mouthed dirtbag associate, Mort (Billy Bastiani), stiffs him on his last job.  Then he gets stabbed when Mort catches him stealing his TV.  His luck changes when he passes out on Mona (Jennifer Beals), a lovelorn, drug addicted musician who was trying to kill herself in a cemetery.  Mona takes Joey back to her apartment, patching him up and clumsily seducing him.  Their budding romance gets complicated when Mort turns up dead, minus his stash of a hot new designer drug, Libido.  Joey gets squeezed between Spuntz (Nicholas Worth), a bargain basement crime kingpin who thinks he has the stash, and washed up homicide detective Hank Dick (Darren McGavin), who’s using Joey to get to Spuntz.  All Joey wants to do is run off with his new girl, but first he will have to track down the drugs, keep out of jail, avoid Spuntz’s psychotic hustler enforcer Bart, (Mark Pellegrino), deal with Mona’s sleazebag ex-boyfriend, Lance (James Le Gros), and stay out of the sights of the real killer. Just another day in L.A.

Billy Zane’s Joey Turks is a terrible criminal.  As in, he is terrible at being a criminal, not that he is a criminal who inspires terror.  Mostly he inspires getting beaten up.  The first shot of the movie has him very awkwardly stepping out of the window of a house carrying a TV and then coming face to face with the guy he’s trying to rip-off.  He is a car thief who only steals the piece of shit kind of cars that people try to have stolen in the first place.  He keeps all his belongings stored in a bus station locker, and has to swipe three bucks from a nice old lady’s purse when he can’t afford to get them out.  Danny Ocean, his is not.

He’s a bit like Michael Moriarty’s sad sack crook in Q.  The difference here is that it’s not just Joey that is bad at his job.  Everyone in the entire film is embarrassingly incompetent at their chosen profession.  Joey is just the only one who is aware of that fact.

A good example of this lack of self-reflection is disgraced homicide detective Hank Dick.  Imagine if Darren McGavin’s short sighted, impulsive dad from A CHRISTMAS STORY was divorced, full of bitterness, and had a gun.  That is Hank Dick.  He is months away from retirement with absolutely nothing to show for it.  The younger detectives openly mock his famously inaccurate intuition and long string of unsolved cases.  When he learns that Spuntz is involved in Joey’s troubles, Hank sees his chance to end his career on a high note, or at least a note that doesn’t sound like utter failure.  Except instead of doing actual police work, Hank just bullies Joey into bringing Spuntz to him.  

McGavin imbues Hank with a blind determination that is completely disconnected from reality.   In one scene, while Hank is driving through L.A., he stares down an increasingly agitated Joey sitting in the passenger seat for what seems like thirty seconds before stating, “I’ve got my eye on you, son.”  It’s not a Police Squad style bit of parody, it’s simply that Hank does not give a shit.  He would rather run over a pedestrian than ruin the moment.  The humor comes from Joey, who clearly does give a shit, but can only squirm and plead with the old man until he’s made his point.

It is a testament to how bad Hank is at being a detective that his arch nemesis is Spuntz, a third tier crime boss with delusions of grandeur.  Nicholas Worth is a huge guy, known for playing violent, slow witted brutes like in DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE and SWAMP THING.  As a nice change of pace, Spuntz is a refined, cultured man.  He speaks eloquently about the opera and the finer things in life.  He is also completely full of shit.  Everything is for show, whether it’s staging an elegant feast in a house he clearly broke into, or belting out the score of Otello on a cheap boombox.  

Spuntz’s criminal empire seems to consist solely of Bart, his muscle bound boytoy that he took off —and constantly threatens to put back on—the streets.  He tries to project an air of calm authority, but it is hard for him to keep his cool when all his money is tied up in the lost shipment of Libido.  Or when he is constantly being ridiculed by Bart.  Just like Hank Dick, he does not get the respect he thinks he deserves, but it is hard to do when he is trying to intimidate Joey while dressed in a Speedo, or when Bart busts in on him while on the toilet.  Dignity is the one thing in this movie nobody can afford.

Mark Pellegrino’s gay hustler can be a bit much, with his love of electropop and skimpy muscle shirts, and his performance quickly becomes so over the top extreme that is impossible to take him seriously as a human being.  He’s a walking, talking, dancing manifestation of pure id.  The only thing on his mind is fucking and fighting.  That and giving Spuntz shit when he gets too self-aggrandizing.  He also has a serious Libido habit, popping the addictive aphrodisiacs like they were Tic Tacs.  The more he takes, the more amorphous his sexuality becomes, meaning he is a threat to either gender (possibly different species, too).  Luckily, Pellegrino plays him as such a buffoon that we know there is no danger of this wandering into SAVAGE STREETS territory.  Not that Joey can appreciate this when Bart is chasing him around a dinner table with his pants around his ankles. 

There is a nice running gag where Joey tries to reason with Bart, only to wind up smashing him over the head with something.  Bart falls for it every time, and collects an ever growing collection of bruises and cuts as the movie goes on.

The only decent thing Joey has going for him is Mona.  Her act of kindness (keeping him from bleeding to death) and act of passion (chemically motivated or not) sets Joey firmly in her orbit.  He doesn’t want her to get involved with his crazy danger, but he doesn’t what to stay away, either.  

Mona’s life isn't all sunshine and puppies, either.  She has a dead end job (“Envelopes, I stuff ‘em, I lick ‘em, I send ‘em”), a dead beat ex always sniffing around, and a Libido habit.  Plus, she has crazy mood swings, and there is that thing about her trying to kill herself.  Despite all this, or maybe because of it, Mona and Joey have undeniable chemistry.  They can be both super sexy and charmingly tender together, if they can ever get their collective shit together long enough to enjoy it.  

Mona has one up on Joey, because there is something she is legitimately good at, singing.  She takes Joey to see her band at a hole-in-the-wall bar.  As to be expected from this kind of movie, her band a very quirky, eclectic ensemble, with an accordionist, cello player, guitarist, and Mona rocking a thrift store gypsy look.  Surprisingly, the movie lets the entire performance play without interruption, which is nice, because her song, “One In a Million”, is fucking fantastic.  It is cool, eccentric, catchy, and beautifully sung by Beals herself.  It has sort of a smoky, sexy They Might Be Giants aesthetic.  The performance isn’t just padding, it moves the story along.  We see Joey watching quietly in the crowd, becoming more and more captivated with this woman.  Zane’s expression honestly captures that I’ve-really-found-something-special realization.  Joey liked her before, but this is the point where he falls hard for her.

This gives Joey more than his own hide to think of as he navigates the L.A. side streets full of lowlifes and weirdos.  Not that that makes it any easier for him.  Joey is the kind of guy much more comfortable with talking his way out of situations than taking violent measures.  Ideally, he would be able to pull a YOJIMBO and play the different sides coming down on him against each other.  Unfortunately, they are too dumb, arrogant, or obsessed to listen, and it is all Joey can do to keep one step ahead of being flattened.  The one voice of sanity in this mess belongs to his former partner in crime turned yuppie philosopher, Sammy (Harry Shearer, playing a sort of Zen Ned Flanders).  He only gives Joey cryptic advice that is probably just bullshit, but at least he offers Joey a moment to catch his breath and think. Ultimately, that is just what Joey needs to solve the mystery.  That's when things really go off the rails.

This movie is so incredibly ‘90s that it’s a shock it was only made in the very beginning of the decade (the copyright is 1990).  A lot of it has to do with the setting.  L.A. practically created the ‘90s.  It was rolling in the '90s a few years ahead of the calendar.  The movie hits on the eclectic style of clothes, the retro lounge chic, the absurdity, and the indie pacing of humor that all became big in the ‘90s.  There is even a bona fide L.A. hipster (Steve Freedman), in his horn-rimmed glasses and with no real understanding of the profound things he is constantly babbling about.  He rescues Joey from being plugged by Bart and they hide out in a Chinese restaurant, because he figures a person trying to kill you would never expect you to stop for a bite to eat.  Like all hipsters, he is wrong.  He has just long enough to express how alive he feels before ending up face down in his plate of moo goo gai pan. That pretty much sums up the '90s right there.

I don’t know where this little movie came from.  It came out too early to be part of the indie boom.  I don’t remember it being in the theater, but it is more slickly produced than you would expect from a Direct to Video cheapie.  I'd never heard of the director, Jeffrey Reiner, before, but that is not surprising since this was his first film (he's most famous now for television, a reoccurring theme with the kinds of movies I like).  The cast, while superb, are low key enough to fly under the radar.  I’m not even sure if I picked it up at the video store or caught it on cable.  One day it was just there.  That is fine by me, because I love this dark tale of a city full of losers.

While still underrated, Billy Zane certainly keeps himself busy. He's been making four or five films a year for decades now, including eight due out for this year alone.  Trouble is, I haven't heard of 99% of them.  That doesn't bode well.  On the other hand, no one has heard of this one and it's a fucking gem.  Maybe I can find a few more in his 700 or so other movies.  If not, well, he's still underrated in my book.

C Chaka

  

One Two Punch: DEMON KNIGHT

We know that February, the shortest, coldest, and most oddly spelled month of the year, is Black History Month.  It is also, less well known as, Women in Horror Month.  It’s probably a bunch of really obscure things, too, like Belgium Waffle Month or Shar Pei Month, but I’m focusing on the first two.  I realized I dropped the ball on Black History Month, up to now, so I decided to go with a horror movie with an African American woman lead.  The first thing that came to mind was DEMON KNIGHT, starring Captain Niobi herself, Jada Pinkett (pre-Smith).  After a little more thinking, I still only had DEMON KNIGHT.  Sure, there’s BLACULA (and SCREAM, BLACULA, SCREAM), SUGAR HILL, GANJA AND HESS, but I didn’t think of those until literally just now and I’ve already watched DEMON KNIGHT, so that’s what you get. It’s okay though, DEMON KNIGHT is a fun one.  

The Capsule:

The sleepy town of Wormwood, NM (pop. 11) suddenly gets a wake-up call when a late night car chase ends in a fireball.  The sole survivor seems to be Brayker, a mysterious, lumpy faced stranger (William Sadler) on the run.  He meets up with lovable drunk Uncle Willy (Dick Miller!), who takes him to the Mission Hotel to lie low.  His dinner with the colorful locals at the hotel is cut short when his pursuer, Billy Zane in a cowboy hat, shows up miraculously unharmed by the fiery car crash and demanding the return of an ancient flask-like key he claims Brayker stole.  He’s fooled the town’s two cops into believing he’s a normal, non-demonic collections agent. When the lead cop wises up, Zane drops the pretense and punches through his head.  Brayker forces Zane out of the hotel using the power of the key, but the Collector (that’s Billy Zane) is not about to give up.  The Mission Hotel is about to become the Alamo for Brayker, ex-con Jeryline (Pinkett), no non-sense owner Irene (CCH Pounder), Uncle Willy, an emotionally insecure hooker, the guy who did the voice of Roger Rabbit, and the guy from WINGS who was also the grumpy guy’s friend in that movie about wine.  The Collector cooks up a batch of glowing eyed ghouls to find their way into the hotel, but he also tries to telepathically seduce the patrons into turning on Brayker.  The stakes are higher than they know.  If the key falls into the Collector’s hands, the world becomes a demon playground.  To further complicate things, Brayker’s time is running out. Fate has brought him to the Mission Hotel to find a successor, someone to carry on the fight against the Collector and his demon knight brethren, and eventually marry Will Smith.  

DEMON KNIGHT is officially titled TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT.  It was the first movie version of the TV horror anthology series TALES FROM THE CRYPT, to be followed by TALES FROM THE CRYPT: BORDELLO OF BLOOD, which was to be followed by nothing. They originally wanted FROM DUSK TIL DAWN to be one also, but Tarantino wanted too much money.  It is bookended with cheesy Crypt Keeper pun-tastic vignettes, but aside from that, it’s a real movie.     The director is Ernest R. Dickerson, who up to this point had only done the urban drama JUICE and the awesome SURVIVING THE GAME, a THE DEADLIEST GAME type movie with Ice T outsmarting a bunch of psychotic rich white guys.  He did a few more movies after, but is mostly known now as an in demand TV director, including stints on THE WIRE and WALKING DEAD.  He does a good job here keeping a pretty standard siege style movie lively and letting the solid cast do their stuff.  He also balances out the horror to humor ratio well, though he goes a touch overboard with the wackiness in a couple of places.  Still, things are satisfyingly bloody and even a bit disturbing at times.  He does kill off a kid, but he lets a cat live, so he’s not totally hardcore.

The movie is very much an ensemble piece; most of the actors really get a chance to shine.  William Sadler plays a good hero, adding a nice degree of desperation and weariness to the stoic Brayker.  Thomas Haden Church’s Roach is a phenomenal douche bag, more than willing to sell out humanity in a very short sighted attempt to come out on top.  Sort of a white trashier Donald Trump.  At one point he has a car battery hooked up to his nipples.  He’s not being tortured, he’s just being kinky.  Charles Fleischer’s nebbish ex-postal worker Wally doesn’t get to do that much before being taken out, but there is a cute joke about the seemingly nice guy stashing a crate of machine guns and planning to actually go postal.  Dick Miller gets way more screen time to be scruffy and lovable than in his usual cameos.  He also gets an amazing death scene (SPOILER, but come on, has the lovable drunk ever survived a horror movie?).   CCH Pounder plays a total badass, as usual (how could she not with a name like CCH Pounder).  She has such an intimidating stare down that I half expected the demons to sheepishly look at the floor and apologize for messing up her hotel. Not even losing an arm can slow her down.  When Billy Zane’s character tries to tempt her into switching sides, she gives him the phantom finger.

Speaking of Billy Zane, he gives one of my all-time favorite bad guy performances.  With his awshucks grin, Zane just radiates charisma in this role (and most of his roles that don’t involve TITANIC).  Aside from the occasional long fingernail, he’s never done up in demon makeup.  He’s just a charming guy who wants to be your friend… and destroy everything you’ve ever cared about.  There are a couple of times he treads close to BEETLEJUICE hijinks, but he rides it out well and even manages to make an impromptu disco ball dance scene with Pinkett seem tolerable.  He is especially good in the seduction scenes, each tailored to exploit the hotel survivors’ weaknesses.  They don’t all work, Pinkett and Pounder stand up to him, but his temptations of Brenda Bakke’s doe eyed prostitute and Dick Miller’s Uncle Willy are believably successful.  It’s funny that Zane doesn’t even bother trying to tempt Roach, he just waits for the self-serving prick to come to him.  He’s got great chemistry with Pinkett, especially in the beginning when she's scared but impressed with him (as opposed to the end when she’s scared but pissed).  Even though it would mean the end of the world, I still kinda wanted him to win.  

Clearly Zane is the best part of the movie, but Jada Pinkett is a close second.  I like the way they pull a Ripley with her.  She was fairly new to the scene in 1995, immediately striking with short blond hair and a defiant pose, but for the first half of the movie she seems like just another potential victim.  When the shit really gets crazy, though, she steps up her game until she’s going toe to toe with the Demon Knight.  There’s a fantastic scene where she slowly emerges from the shadows covered in the protective blood of a martyr, ready to pick a fight.  We know she’s scared, but she woman’s up.  She’s the chosen one.  

Plus, she’s in her underwear, so that’s a bonus.  

One weird thing, for a movie that actually depicts the crucifixion of Christ, it’s not all that religious.  There is some talk about God and Genesis (the book, not the band), but Christ is just referred to as “a carpenter”.  The key originally contained some of his blood, which would ward off the demons, but it was because he was a martyr, not specifically the Son of God.  In fact, the blood of a thief or a WWI soldier works just as well.  It’s a good thing, because they go through a lot of martyr blood in the movie, and that’s just one night.  I’m sure finding a martyr to tap off from isn’t easy, but she’s going to be damn harder pressed to find a Blood of Christ refill pack.
 

Obviously, it’s not an important work of cinema.  It’s a fun little diversion with some very enjoyable performances.  It’s so low key, in fact, that you almost fail to notice what sets it apart from most other horror movies.  It has two African American actresses in prominent, kick ass roles, one of whom not only survives, but is the real hero of the film.  What I think is really cool about it is that they are not specifically black roles for actors, but roles for actors who happen to be black.  It’s the kind of casual diversity that Hollywood should strive for.  Not bad for a horror movie introduced by a wisecracking puppet.

C Chaka