Best of QT Fest Day 3: The Epicenter.

Wipeout
Not much really happened before things got started. Quentin was a bit late, so Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse fame got up on stage and vamped for a little bit. He praised Wipeout (which is used in one of the Drafthouse's "Take your ass out!" trailers) and condemned Brotherhood of Death, calling it a "real piece of shit movie". I think that phrase somehow summoned Quentin because he was right there to defend it. He then went into explaining how the fest has evolved since the days of QT-1. That basically he now finds movies and knows that they have to show in Austin, because Austin is going to get it. The people in the audience will then start talking about the movies, wanting the movies, and that has gotten a lot of films DVD releases. "Austin is the epicenter, alright? The earthquake starts right here and then ripples out". I love this town.

Tarantino then went on to describe the movie, basically saying that the real difference between American Mafia films and Italian Mafia films is that the Italians have actually had to deal with the Mafia, often borrowing money to make the film (Which, as we learned from Hollywood Man, is not a good idea). The mobsters in Italian Mafia movies are dogs, lying, cheating dogs. Shake your hand with one hand and stab you in the back with another. Dogs. He also mentioned that the 70s crime flicks were just about the most violent that there ever was, rivaling the HK 80s action films. I knew we were in for a treat.

Wipeout is a film about Henry Silva as a hitman inside the mafia. There's all sorts of twists and turns in this one, to lay it out would be difficult, but basically, Henry is trying to be loyal, a good hitman, and more than anything - alive. Double crosses, twists, turns populate this film, you can really tell that the Italians really hate the mob. There is a fantastic subplot in this movie, where one family kidnaps the daughter of a gangster, demanding no money, but that he trade himself for the girl, so they can kill him and take over. They have Henry Silva try to negotiate which gets them a little bit of wiggle room, but no deal is made. So, the kidnappers start to demean the girl, and give her a glass of whiskey. Turns out the girl is both a heavy drinker and a huge slut, so they just start going at it. I can say that nobody saw that one coming! Eventually Henry Silva rescues her and takes her to his apartment and she drinks his booze and keeps trying to seduce him. At first he doesn't have any of it, but he gives in and sleeps with her, but doesn't put up with any of her crap. He constantly tells her to shut up, he slaps her around, he treats her like garbage. Incredible. To quote Guy Ritchie, "they don't make movies about slapping women anymore".

Brotherhood of Death
Quentin got back up on stage and starts pumping us up for the next movie, which he bills as a Blacks vs. The Klan movie. He adds in that the funny thing about blaxploitation film is that they very rarely dealt with the Klan at all, and if they did, it was usually just a funny little throw-away scene. This is a movie that flat out deals with the Ku Klux Klan. To add to this, they shot it in the south in Klan territory. "You think Hollywood Man had a tough time getting his movie made? Think about what if they found out about this movie!". To add to this, he noted that there'd be a large billboard off the highway in this film saying "Support your local Klan" - it's not production design, it's location. Yikes.

For a movie about brothers fighting the Klan this movie takes it's sweet time to get to it. However, all the time in this movie is sweet time - this movie is sweet. We start off with a little bit of a red herring, the group of 3 guys and 1 girl gets some gas at a gas station and try to throw beer cans into the trash. One misses and hits a car, the owner of the car comes out and says "Hey, do you know what you're doing? There's a white woman in that car, you'd better apologize!". That sets the tone for the whole movie. The scene ends without a scuffle, or the Klan being alerted or anything. Instead, the movie takes the brothers to Vietnam where they complain about the war and fight and learn all of the Vietcong's booby traps. They then return to the US and decide to fight the power by organizing a get out the vote campaign. Then they do this, then they do that and eventually, late, late in the film, the Klan gets introduced.

But once they do, it really takes off, taking the movie to even higher heights. The final confrontation of brother vs. Klan just really got the audience going. Any time a Klansman got killed the mostly white audience went crazy, applauding, cheering. This screening had the most energy of the fest and just got everyone pumped up to where they wanted to just got out and kill Klan members. The crowd was just electric and it was one of those great cinema moments where everyone is behind a movie and loves it and just enjoys the hell out of it. That's why the fest works, the energy. Watching these movies alone on DVD just isn't the same.

I shold mention that after this movie I spoke to Lars, who said that Tim was thinking of "The Black 6" when he said Brotherhood was a piece of shit movie. That makes sense, because Brotherhood is simply amazing.

Joy House
Quentin split before this one. It technically wasn't a QT fest selection, instead was another Weird Wednesday film. So Lars introduced it, and Lars is a great introductionist as well. It's a print that he's wanted for years, and he's struggled to get it, and now he has it and the movie is in such a wide format that the drafthouse's screen would have to be about 4 feet wider than it is to show it all. It also features Alain Delon and a young Jane Fonda.

I was ready for the movie because of Alain, but it was Jane Fonda in the movie that really impressed me. She looked better in this movie than any other that I had seen her in. To explain what Joy House is about would be incredibly difficult, it's another twisting and turning one. There needs to be a DVD of this one, because there was just some stuff I missed in it. The film was really good, but it absolutely wore me out. I was tired afterwards. I was glad I saw the film, I enjoyed it, but it just sapped my energy. It's not a really good midnight film, especially following Brotherhood of Death.
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