Jackie Brown (February 6th at the Cedar Lee)

[JACKIE BROWN screens Saturday February 6th at 9:30 pm and midnight at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

It’s important to remember that JACKIE BROWN, in 1997, was boy wonder Quentin Tarantino third feature – and his first following the smash-hit-phenom from 1993 that was PULP FICTION. Yes, in the years between those two, fans wondered what could the electrifying Tarantino possibly pull out of his unleashed id this time? In the meantime, whole books were written about the former video clerk and B-movie nut-turned-superstar director/producer/impresario and his earlier triumphs with PULP and RESERVOIR DOGS.

Well, when JACKIE BROWN – an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch – finally premiered, a number of folks were let down. Possibly even more fans than were disappointed by STAR WARS (I DON’T EVEN CARE WHAT EPISODE IT WAS) THE PHANTOM MENACE.

Because, well, dude, where’s my decapitations? Where’s the weird stuff? Where are the shot-by-shot tributes to some 1970s badly English-dubbed Yugoslavian grindhouse softcore horror movie nobody but QT ever saw during its limited run in some condemned LA fleapit?

Listen, fanboys, you got your old Quentin Tarantino back with the KILL BILL series, not to mention INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, DJANGO UNCHAINED and THE HATEFUL EIGHT. As for JACKIE BROWN, a curious one-off in Tarantino's ouvre of B- and Z-movie tributes with A-movie casts and budgets, look at it this way: it’s almost as though a late-career Quentin Tarentino movie fell through a wormhole in time and space from, oh, say 20 or 30 years from now. When the director has finally grown up, gotten his heart broken more often, and is an older, wiser, sadder and more sedate Tarantino that the one we know now, the kung-fu connoisseur who is the yin to Robert Rodriguez’…other yin.

31 Days of Halloween 2012: Alligator

An appreciation by Bob Ignizio

If you watch only one giant alligator movie this year, it should be 1980's ALLIGATOR.  It's about as perfect a "nature gone amok"/giant monster movie as you can find.  Sure, it follows the structure of JAWS pretty closely, but screenwriter John Sayles puts his own stamp on the material, making ALLIGATOR more than just a cheap imitation.

One of the film's biggest assets is its assortment of memorable characters.  For starters, we've got a great hero in Robert Forster's David, a rough around the edges homicide detective fighting the ghosts of his past and male pattern baldness, and not faring too well against either.  Reptile expert Marisa (Robin Riker) is kind of a mess, too.  She still lives at home with her mother, and her collection of pet snakes isn't exactly a turn-on for most guys.  Then there's the fun supporting parts by character actors like Sydney Lassick (Cheswick in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST) as an unscrupulous pet shop owner and perennial B-movie stalwart Henry Silva (MEGAFORCE, CHAINED HEAT, LUST IN THE DUST, and many more) as an arrogant big game hunter hoping to add the gator to his list of kills.