The Devil's Rain

The Devil’s Rain is one of those movies which you think, you can comprehend before you see it. “Sure,” you oh foolish reader say, “I get it, William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, Ida Frickin Lupino, John Travolta, easy scientologist jokes involving his weakness for joining kooky religions, Ernest Borgnine as Old Scratch hisself. I can handle kitschy movies after all I saw Troll 2!”



Gentle reader you have no idea what awaits you when you pop The Devil’s Rain into your unsuspecting DVD player. It’s not a movie it’s a Lovecraftian Beast imprisoned on home video. Once you see it you can’t unsee it. Anton LeVay may have been an adviser on this movie but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was Abdul Alhazred that directed this thing. The movie might only take 80 minutes, but in that time it’ll sear itself into your psyche.

The movie starts with a montage from Bosch and a heavy score. This will be the most subtle thing in it. Afterwards the movie starts in proper with Shatner already carving up thick slices of ham, as he argues with his mother on a dark and stormy night, about people who we do not know. Then suddenly, out of the rain, THE DEVIL’S RAIN!!! Shatner’s now eyeless father emerges harasses Shatner and then muddles into a pile of goop after mumbling “HAIL SATAN!!” in Latin. Both Shatner and Lupino take this exceedingly well considering the circumstances, with Lupino taking it mainly as an opportunity to say “Told you so!” and Shatner not even seeming to notice that his father has seemingly had his eyes gouged out.



Anyway it turns out that all the hubbub is over a Satanic book (see kid’s reading will get you nowhere, in fact stop reading this, wait stop I’m kidding please comeback I’m so lonely) Shatner gets in some great pauses ("My Father………………………….Would Agree with me.") and then runs off to the desert to do battle with The Father Of All Lies, pausing only briefly to register that Satan has fucked up his uncle and kidnapped his Mother, once again aside from a prime Shatner “CORVIS GOD DAMN YOU!!!” he takes it all exceedingly instride.



Anyway it’s been twenty minutes and not one Borgnine sighting. This bringing the Borgnine ratio of awesomeness dangerously low. But fear not friends, He show’s up in the desert and does such ghastly supernatural acts like, making water appear from a well!……..

Well I guess I wasn’t really that impressed either. Borgnine wants the evil book, Shatner wants to not give Borgnine the evil book. They reach an impasse. Watching Borgnine and Shatner try to out act eachother is truly something to see it looks a little something like this.



So Shatner challenges Lucifer to a good ole fashioned faith off, forgetting despite his supposedly religious leanings, that theologically speaking that’s exactly what you’re NOT supposed to do if you encounter The Devil (No seriously, I don't mean to get all church lady here but Matthew 4:7) . After the predictable happens, Satan takes out Shatner with the ole Cross into a rattlesnake routine.

After that we cut abruptly to Tom Skerritt and his psychic wife. Turns out that Skerritt’s the brother of Shatner and he’s next on the menu. A seemingly stoned Skerrit ends up back out to the family spread, to argue with the most overactingest over actor in the movie (and really lets think about what that means) playing a Sheriff whose all a hooting an a hollering over how Skerritt’s an idiot to think just because his families house is wreck, and the uncle is a babbling loon now, that there’s anything to worry about.

The same non reactions occur for awhile, this seems to be the first horror film that was shot with everyone on Quaaludes (except for Borgnine whose definitely doing some Crystal Meth).

Next thing we know a shirtless sweating Shatner is chained to a table, while Borgnine rants at him and then watches as Shatner makes out with his mother and is then crucified upside down. At that point the movie promptly becomes the greatest thing ever.

Skerritt shows up a bit too late with psychic wife, whose impressive powers don’t warn her to the fact that The Devil will soon torch their car. That’s right, The Devil, using his same awesome “Water From the Well” powers just straight up pulls a Detroit. And Just when you think this has got to be the least impressive version of The Lord Of The Flies put on film… Out comes EYELESS JOHN TRAVOLTA!!!!



HOLY FUCKING SHIT EYELESS JOHN TRAVOLTA!!! Just as you’re recovering from that shock of awesome it cuts to Pilgrim Ernest Borgnine who starts speaking with a bunch of Thee’s and Thou’s! Words cannot describe the pleasure I get from Ernest Borgnine dressed as a pilgrim speaking like he’s in the Satanic version of Shakespeare in the park. The flashback reveals what the whole Feud between Borgnine and Shatner’s peeps is about. But you barely register it because. PILGRIM ERNEST BORGNINE AND EYELESS JOHN TRAVOLTA!!!

Anyway Shatner, who I keep thinking is dead by the way, shows up again, this time with extra Pentagram carved into the chest action. And all the Satanist show up to watch him sacrificed. Er. Again. Then Ernest Borgnine turns into a goat and burns William Shatner’s soul with a voodoo doll.

Then Ernest Borgnine Turns Into A Goat and burns William Shatner’s soul with a voodoo doll.



THEN ERNEST BORGNINE TURNS INTO A GOAT!!! AND BURNS WILLIAM SHATNER’S SOUL WITH A VOODOO DOLL!!!




THEN ERNEST BORGNINE TURNS INTO A GOAT!!! AND BURN’S WILLIAM SHATNER’S SOUL WITH A VOODOO DOLL!!!



Then people melt, and the movie ends, and you ascend to a higher level of consciousness. So you’ve got that going for you. All in all The Devil's Rain fucking kicks your fucking ass in a way that Christan Bale only threatened to do.

I Hope They Play Jack Johnson In Hell

So I’m working on the loading dock for a company that rhymes with Kohls, and is also Kohls. Yes I know oh the giddy heights my life has taken me too. Anyway in between store announcements that go somewhere beyond insipid, some sick bastard decides to play a fricking Jack Johnson song.

I’ll repeat, it’s not like this just randomly came on the radio, this is Kohl’s programmed music. Someone made a decision to play Jack Johnson. At Five In The Morning. On A Freezing Cold Loading Dock. As we where lifting fifty pound boxes of shit. What the fuck is wrong with people?

Do you know when’s a good time to listen to Jack Johnson? When you’re at the beach with a joint in one hand and a pina colda in the other. Do you know what’s not a good time to listen to Jack Johnson? Any other time. You know what’s a particular bad time to listen to Jack Johnson, on the loading dock at Five AM.

It’s not that I have anything against Mr. Johnson per se. He’s basically a modern day Jimmy Buffet with (slightly) less smarm, and (slightly) better word play. The problem is the man lives the very definition of a charmed life. Love him or hate him, you’d kill to be him. Admit it.

Do you know what Jack Johnson did today? He woke up got a little wake and bake action going. Slept with a groupy or two. Cashed a royalty check. Noodled around on his guitar for a few minutes, and then went out surfing for awhile. Know what he’ll do tomorrow. THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING! Forever and ever amen. Jack Johnson has been anointed by the Gods as the favorite chosen son of the cosmos, the one man in this veil of tears who will never feel what we mortals know as pain.

Now normally I’m OK with that. Some people just have all the luck. It’s just that reminding you of that while you’re unloading a truck just seems redundant.

Ugly Hateful Movie Given Ugly Hateful Sequel

DESPAIR

Drive By Trucker: The Fine Print

The Drive By Truckers are without question my favorite band working today. A band I love so much that, theirs is the best concert I’ve ever seen, despite the fact that I almost died on the way to the show (True Story!).

Patterson Hood’s pain soaked vocals, Mike Cooley’s simultaneously virtuosic and laid back style (And former bandmate/other genius Jason Isbell), Shoshanna Tucker’s soul come together as a perfect storm, and create a mix of Rock, Country, Roots, and Blues that sound unlike anything out on the scene today.

“The Fine Print”, is a collection of “rarities and oddities” and while it’s not as satisfying as getting a new album, but for the dedicated fan is a real treasure trove.

About half of the album is covers, old classics that DBT manages to approach from a completely different angle then expected. Their take on Tom Petty’s “Rebels” for example. Takes Petty’s most raucous, shit kicking song; the type of song you play as you burn down your ex-wifes house before tooling down country roads in your GTO with the lights off, and turns it into a proudly bruised and beaten dirge. Finding the wounded pride and sadness of the song’s titular perpetual loser rather then celebrating his defiance. Their take on Zevon’s Hick Minstrel song “Play It All Night Long” transforms Zevon’s virtually whiteface performance into something authentic. When Zevon sang “There ain’t much to country living but sweat piss jizz and blood” during his tribute to incest, burculousis, Post Traumatic stress, and alcoholism, he was being ghoulishly provocative. Hood reclaims it, doing what he does best, making the stereotypes real. And it slips in an extra cover of “Ain’t That Pretty At All”, just to sweeten the deal. The band takes on “Like A Rolling Stone” for it’s final track, turning what in any other band’s hands would be a reverant cover to one of rock’s greatest songs, into a boozy bar band riff. It’s the first time I’ve been able to hear “Like A Rolling Stone” as a song, and a good one too, rather then a cultural touchstone in awhile.

The rest of the songs are more of a mixed bag. The alternate takes of DBT classics “Goode’s Field Road” and “Uncle Frank” are illuminating but inconsequential. The new tracks are a mixed bag. TVA is a great DBT epic, and it’s nice to get one last Jason Isbell masterpiece now that he’s gone. “The Great Car Dealer War” was cut from “The Dirty South”, one of my favorite albums, and it fits right in. It’s a scorching piece of small town nastiness on an epic scale. The only track on here that’s kind of a bum one is “Mrs. Claus’ Kimono” perhaps the least sentimental Christmas song ever recorded. It’s one of Patterson Hood’s beloved novelty songs, which are the kind of things that your uncle plays after he’s had a few too many drinks at a family function, and as far as those go it’s better then “The President’s Penis Is Missing” but not as good as “The Night GG Allen Came To Town”

As good as “The Fine Print” is, (and if you can’t tell by now it’s very very good) it can’t help but feel a bit inconsequential, it just whet’s the appetite for whatever comes next.

The Unseen #11: Lightning Swords Of Death

Why’d I Buy It?: Given to me during the last days of the Insomniac. Also cause it’s called Lightning Swords Of Death which has to go on the short list of greatest titles ever conceived by man.

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: Admittedly I can be a bit of a movie snob about some things. The Shogun Assassin Series is one of them. For those who don’t know, The Shogun Assassin Series is the American dubbed version of the Japanese Lone Wolf And Cub series. They’re heavily cut, (the first is actually the first two movies in the Lone Wolf And Cub series) in order to feature the maximum amount of violence and the minimum amount of sense.

Thanks to the fact that these films where available in The US long before the unedited Lone Wolf And Cub Series was, these films gained a reputation and are now considered to be true cult classics. Still with the original seven film Lone Wolf And Cub series readily(ish) available I see no reason to watch the mutilated cuts. I enjoyed owning Lightning Swords Of Death (or as it’s know in Japan Baby Cart At The River Hades) as a collectors item and not much else.

How Was It?: Just what you’d expect, as a blistering showcase of hardcore Samurai action it’ virtually unparalleled. As a movie I can never quite get it out of my mind that there’s a better version out there. Which isn’t to say that it was anything less then a great time at the movies.

Lightning Swords Of Death follows the further adventures of existential Samurai Ogami Itto, whose wife was murdered by the mad Shogun, and now travels the country with his infant son ending the lives of various mother fuckers unlucky enough to cross his path. In this particular case he’s hired to kill a corrupt governor. The twist is just after accepting the job, the governor attempts to hire Itto. Though Itto refuses the job, he does go to meet the governor, just so the poor bastard can realize what Itto’s been hired to do. That’s cold. The governor throws an army at Itto and as the taglines say he throws em back, a piece at a time.



For fans of Samurai films this film is just about perfect. The trademark of The Lone Wolf And Cub series, has always been the quick brutality of the fights. They seem real, not expertly choreographed sequences but desperate scrapes. Even when Itto’s fighting against multiple opponents the battles rarely last over a minute. There’s one great “Oh dick move!” scene in which Itto tricks an assassin into “saving” his infant son from drowning, and then rises out of the water like Jason Voorhese and strikes down upon him with great vengeance and terrible anger. For variety the film puts together one hell of a climax, in which Itto takes on a Lord Of The Rings sized army, employing just about every weapon you’ve ever seen used in a martial arts movie, it’s jaw dropping.

The Lone Wolf And Cub movies are unlike any other action movie ever made. Like I said, the films have a weird existential vibe to them. Itto doesn’t really have a larger plan, he’s just going to kill people until he dies. When he is moved to help someone he does it in his own way.

In one of the movies best scenes, he’s moved to save a woman from being sold into prostitution. Surrounded by the brothel’s bodyguards and the madame demanding the woman, you think you know how it’s going to go, namely Itto’s going to make the world short a few brothel guards. Instead he allows himself to be taken away and tortured just to prove a point.

I can’t think of another movie where anything remotely like that would happen. I mean sure sometimes the hero will fail, get captured, and then tortured to prove that he can take it and prove what a big badass he is, but to get tortured just to show he don’t give a fuck? Now that’s impressive.

It should be pointed out before you run out and grab these that there are not one, but two unnecessary rape scenes, that are surprisingly graphic and nasty. Both are to say the very least, deeply unpleasant.

But that’s just how things go in the world of Lone Wolf And Cub, the darkest craziest action movies known to man.

Batman And Robin: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Tolerate Grant Morrison

So me and Grant Morrison are not the best of friends. I’ll be the first to admit that it could be me, and not him. I just don’t get it. While others see the best comics storyteller working today. Someone who understands and utilizes the form in a way that’s almost preternatural. I on the other hand do not.

I get no charge from Morrison's work. To be frank he’s kind of a bore, someone coasting on an overrated reputation, chaos magicks, and an ego that makes Alan Moore’s seem healthy. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I read Final Crisis with an ever growing sense of despair it. I didn’t understand that. And I mean that on a very basic narrative level. I couldn’t follow what was happening. It was like a chemistry book with superheroes doodled in it. Stuff like Animal Man and The Filth, where disappointingly (and in The Filth’s case depressingly) shallow, based upon their reputation. And as for his “classics” like All Star Superman, and Arkham Asylum. Well these too where problematic. For something that supposedly “got the essence of Superman perfectly” I can’t help but think he had remarkably few qualms about genetically engineering peoples fates. Arkham Asylum was also problematic. Though McKean’s art was beautiful (and also utterly inept narratively) and Morrison did script some arresting moments, the whole thing was too clever by half, and came out as the work of someone who didn’t really like Batman.

Which was kind of what I thought about Batman RIP the first time I read it. Though in interest of truth in criticism that particular piece works one hell of a lot better as a whole then in parts and featured a few truly stellar sequences. Still I can’t help but feel that it’s a flawed work at the very least.

I mention all of this only to underline how odd I found it when Morrison became responsible for one of the best Goddamn Batman stories I’ve ever read. A story centered around not one but two gimmicks that I was deeply skeptical about at first. It’s sort of amazing a true classic of the genre (And can we take a moment to savor the irony that it shares the name with the other Batman And Robin? OK Irony savored. Moving On).

So many comic writers seem like kids at a toybox dragging out two action figures to bang together for the thousandth time. And one thing I’ll say about Morrison, he’s never afraid to bring new elements into play. At the climax of this issue there are now two characters who feel like they’re destined to be lasting parts of The Batman universe, it feels like things matter, and frankly it’s a rush.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Batman And Robin is based on two Morrison elements that I found, at the very least, quite questionable. Morrison giving Wayne a son in the form of the petulant, vicious Damien, and Morrison sending Wayne back to the caveman era to go write shit on the wall (I think? I’m not going to lie I have little to no idea what happened at the end of Final Crisis). Taking these two unstable elements, Morrison has somehow spun gold. Telling the story of Dick Grayson, attempting to fill Batman’s big shoes, while at the same time turning his sociopathic son into a somewhat acceptable Robin, while battling a new villain Professor Pig, and his creepy creepy Doll people, made for a compelling story. And while Morrison’s first two issues in the arc worked fine, in the third one he brings it all together.

It’s like this issue allowed me to briefly see the Grant Morrison everyone is always talking about. The one who knows how to write a scene like Professor Pyg’s monologue, which could ONLY work in comics. It works because the best version of it is happening in your head as it happens on the page. As a result it’s hilarious, disturbing, terrifying, and even a little sad, with a great punch line to boot (A punch line that incidentally happened to capture my exact reaction after reading The Filth).

Morrison it seems has also finally figured out how to write for Damien, by giving him just a smidgen of a moral center (though so much as to spoil the fun Morrison has writing him) he makes him infinitely more relatable. And by giving Damien his first failure, he sets up what appears to be one hell of a thread for the next arc in the series. All while still finding the time to work in one of the best moments from Batman RIP.

Batman And Robin seems vital in a way very few Comics appear these days. In a medium where every story is just a retcon away from obsolescence, Morrison’s story seems to matter. He’s setting up something great here, and when he brings Quitely back to end the run, I think it’ll be very clear that this is one of the true, few classics of superhero genre.

The Unseen #10: A Wedding

Why’d I Buy It?: Came with Altman Box Set.

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: See Thieves Like Us.

How Was It?: Quite a pleasant surprise actually. While Thieves Like Us was a virtual showcase for what I find frustrating about Altman, A Wedding equally highlights the qualities of his that I find so appealing and valuable about his work. His warmth, sharp eye and ear, and underrated sense of humor.

A Wedding was by all accounts, including his own, Altman’s attempt to top Nashville. Featuring a cast of hundreds rather then mere dozens, and spread out over a zippy (for Altman) two hours, A Wedding is the logical endpoint of Altman’s large canvas films, in the same way that Brewster McCloud is the Vanishing Point for his strange insular movies.

How’d it work out? Well being that Nashville is often cited as one of the greatest American movies ever made, and A Wedding is usually dismissed as only a curio if that, perhaps you can guess. And though A Wedding isn’t exactly a masterpiece, it’s jumbled and confused, I can’t help but love it a little.

It’s was the loosest, funniest film that Altman made since MASH, and would remain such until A Prairie Home Companion. Centering around a two large families, a nouveu rich group and a family of old money with more mongrels in their midst then they'd care to admit. They unite for a Marriage that everyone aside from the principles seem to realize is a terrible idea. The family returns to a palatial mansion where they drink, gossip, carouse, fuck, die, and suffer natural disasters.

While the film is hampered by it’s large stunt cast, and it’s hummingbird like attention span, no one really gets a whole lot of screen time. You come to care about the characters almost inspite of yourself. Altman was such a gifted artist that there he was able to capture a subjects humanity in a few quick sure handed strokes. He slips a strangely affecting middle aged love story into the mix, featuring a very game Carol Brunett.

Despite the lack of a lot of screen time, Altman never reduces anyone to caricature either. His reputation as a misanthrope was always overblown. Nobody as interested in people as he could simply hate them. Maybe it’s the natural joviality of the wedding, the films lighter tone, or the obvious affection he has for some of his most unlovable characters but that’s particularly easy to see in A Wedding.

The film has a wicked sense of humor, even playing a running gag with the corpse of Lillian Gish, kind of like playing a running gag with the Virgin Mary Of Cinema, that manages to be funny as it is tasteless, and even kind of sweet.

A Wedding might not be a masterpiece, but make no mistake it’s Altman at the very top of his game. And it’s always pleasurable to watch an old master at work.