While I find it hard to give a damn about an organization that year after year ignores some of the most influential and greatest artists and bands in popular music history, last night The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame got it right when they inducted Adam Horowitz, Adam Yauch and Michael Diamond. For more than thirty years now, Beastie Boys have been one of the most consistently brilliant, trailblazing and influential bands in the world and I am thrilled to see them honored as the truly great act they are. Are there bands that should have been put in first? Absolutely but there are few that are more deserving than Beastie Boys and I wanted to wish them a sincere congratulations. I also wanted to send my best to my favorite BEATsie Boy MCA, Adam Yauch, who was unable to attend last night's ceremony. I wish the best health and happiness to Adam and I hope for at least three more decades of truly inspiring and thrilling music from his amazing group.
Few filmmakers have ever fallen from critical and popular grace quite as fast as British-born director Hugh Hudson. A former documentary filmmaker and advertiser, Hudson received his first break in feature-length filmmaking when he acted as the Second-Unit Director on Alan Parker's chilling Midnight Express (1978). Within a year of working with Parker, Hudson got his chance to sit in the lead directors chair for a period piece focusing on two runners training for spots in the 1924 Olympic Games. That film was Chariots of Fire and it immediately became one of the most acclaimed films of its time, when it was released in 1981, and Hudson briefly became one of the most respected directors of the period.
After losing the Best Director Oscar for Chariots of Fire in 1982 Hudson began to immerse himself in what would turn out to be his next project, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984). The shoot was gruelling and was strife with problems and the behind the scenes issues stretched to the screen, as Hudson's follow-up to Chariots of Fire proved to be a major critical and financial letdown. The lukewarm-reception granted to Greystoke was nothing compared to the crucifying Hudson took for his third film, Revolution (1985), a bold but flawed work that all but ended Hudson's time as filmmaker any studio would bank on, even though he had helmed a best-picture winner less than five years before.
Disillusioned and embittered after the troubles he had with the studios on both Greystoke and Revolution, Hugh Hudson stepped away from the world of film for several years in order to regroup artistically and spiritually. He would re-emerge in 1989 with what would turn out to be his finest film, a moving low-budget drama centering on a troubled young teen named Tim, but few took notice and the still-stirring Lost Angels has all but slipped into obscurity.
Had he not been a member of one of the most consistently brilliant groups of the last quarter of a century, Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz (Ad-Rock) could have probably had quite a film career, as he has both the looks and talent of a great star. Horowitz has appeared in a number of films since making his big-screen debut as the star of Hugh Hudson's Lost Angels but his acting career has never sparked the way his music work had and continues to. Watching Lost Angels today, it's striking just how moving and resonate Horowitz's work is. His performance has a real rhythm and grace to it and it's hard to not feel a tinge of regret at the thought he never had the chance to capitalize on it, although he came close with Abbe Wool's equally in need of rediscovery Roadside Prophets (1992).
Horowitz plays Tim Doolan, an angry and frustrated teen who is committed to a psych hospital after continually getting in trouble at home and at school. While inpatient, Tim meets an understanding psychiatrist named Charles Loftis (played wonderfully by the great Donald Sutherland) and the two form a strong, if unexpected, bond that helps heal both of them.
The gritty and small-scale Lost Angels was a real left-turn from the bold big-budget period-pieces Hudson was known for in 1989. Whereas Hudson felt like a filmmaker in trouble on both Greystoke and Revolution, he is back in total control on Lost Angels and he guides the film with an assured confidence and fluid style. Most surprising is the fact that Hudson showed that his real gift as a director could be found in the way he handled his actors in intimate and sometimes uncomfortable to watch situations. Lost Angels has all the heart found in Chariots of Fire without the bombast and it stands as a sharp reminder that, given the right material, Hugh Hudson is a talent to be reckoned with.
Lost Angels was the final script produced for the big-screen penned by Oscar nominated writer Michael Weller, a man who won much acclaim for his work on Ragtime (1981). Lost Angels could have been just another Rebel Without a Cause clone but Weller's script is really fine and in the moments between Tim and Loftis it is really quite great. Weller's dialogue is finely-tuned and really taps into what it was like to be an angry and disillusioned Reagan-era youth. Lost Angels stands out among the many angsty troubled-youth films of the late eighties and it's a shame that it isn't more well-known.
Shot by the wonderful Spanish cinematographer Juan Ruiz Ancjia, scored by none other than Philippe Sarde and featuring startling art-direction from legendary Alex Tavoularis, Lost Angels feels like a work of love from all involved, especially considering its low-budget and quick-shooting schedule. It's moving, both beautifully acted and directed and was all but ignored when it was dumped in just a few theaters by Orion in May of 1989. Despite the fact that it had been nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Lost Angels failed to find much critical or popular support upon its release and Hugh Hudson's valiant attempt at resurrecting his film career sadly did not pay-off.
After the relative failure of Lost Angels, Horowitz would step back into his iconic role as a Beastie Boy and within a few years would help solidify the group as one of the greatest in rock history. His role in Roadside Prophets remains his sole starring role outside of his powerful turn in Lost Angels.
Hugh Hudson would drift away from film for nearly a decade before his sweetly stirring return with the lovely My Life So Far (1999), another fine work few took note of. He has since returned to the world of documentary filmmaking with the very personal Rupture: A Matter of Life OR Death (2011).
Lost Angels was released on VHS and laserdisc in the early nineties but it has never had a DVD or Blu-ray release, though it is available to stream over at Netflix. One of the great unknown American movies of the late-eighties, Lost Angels is quite a special little film and I would love to see it resurface one day and finally find the audience it has always deserved.
The exciting second feature from the very gifted and much-missed Gordon Parks Jr., Three the Hard Way (1974) is one of the great Blaxploitation films of the seventies. Featuring a towering cast, energetic stunt-work, impressive photography and energized direction, Three the Hard Way remains an exploitation fans dream; a hard-hitting quickly paced racehorse of a film that is another reminder of the greatness of Gordon Parks Jr., one of the seventies most under-appreciated icons.
Gordon Parks Jr. was riding high when he set out to follow-up his first groundbreaking feature, the mega-hit masterwork Super Fly(1972). He was also a filmmaker enflamed by much of the unjustified criticism thrown at him for supposedly celebrating negative stereotypes with his first influential film. With Three the Hard Way, Parks Jr. was on a mission to squash those who condemned his first film by producing a follow-up that would offer up three of the biggest stars of the day near Super-Hero roles that had more in common with James Bond than John Shaft.
The plot of Three the Hard Way introduces a new element to the Blaxploitation genre, namely science fiction. Parks Jr’s film concerns a militant group of nazi-like white supremacists who have come up with a water-based formula that will kill off America’s black population. The group make a fatal error though when they kill the buddy of Record Producer Jimmy Lait and kidnap his girlfriend. All hell breaks loose when Jimmy enlists two of his hard-hitting-friends, Jagger Daniels and Mister Keyes, and sets out to get his girl back and stop this new evil empire from blossoming.
Three the Hard Way is more than anything else a star vehicle for Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly and Park’s Jr. was clearly well aware of this. Photography the three with the same bravado that Terence Young had captured Sean Connery in Thunderball (1965), Parks Jr. highlights his stars considerable ass-kicking charisma at every turn. Kelly’s introduction into the film (highlighted by a jaw-dropping karate kickdown that has to be seen to be believed) alone would make Three the Hard Way a Blaxploitation classic, but Brown and Williamson also deliver the goods throughout, especially Brown who was fresh off his bruising success as the unstoppable Slaughter.
Three the Hard Way also features a vibrant supporting cast including Shelia Frazier as Jimmy’s kidnapped lady, Alex Rocco as a police lt. and in a small role the incredible Roberta Collins. The real scene-stealers though are Pamela Serpe, Marie O’Henry and Irene Tsu, who play one of the strangest (and most fetching) torture squads in screen history.
While Three the Hard Way is very much a vehicle for Parks Jr’s impressive cast, that doesn’t stop him from offering up the same skillful and inventive direction that is seen in all of his work through Super Fly onto Thomasine and Bushrod and his final-feature Aaron Loves Angela. Like in his other works, Parks Jr’s startling trademarked still-photography sections are here to punctuate the thematic elements of the film, and his peerless street shooting (helped wonderfully here by the dazzling work of cinematographer Lucien Ballard) is simply astonishing. Park’s Jr. was a force to be reckoned with behind the camera and Three the Hard Way is another fine example of a clear auteur at work.
Despite the greatness of the cast and the direction, perhaps the real star of Three the Hard Way is stunt coordinator Hal Needham, who was just a few years away from coming to fame as a director himself, with the extraordinary and uber-succesful Smokey and the Bandit (1977). Needham’s work here for Parks Jr. is incredible to say the least, and his bold decision to include all three of the stars within the stunts is genius and gives Three the Hard Way a real visceral punch lacking from many action movies before of since. The success of the film can finally be credited to Parks Jr’s exquisite shot choices, Needham’s stunt coordination and editor Robert Swink’s inspired cutting…not to mention the onscreen characterizations of three of seventies greatest stars in their absolute prime.
Three the Hard Way, and its soundtrack from Curtis Mayfield’s backing group The Impressions, was a big hit when it played to thrilled audiences in 1974. Unlike Thomasine and Bushrod and Aaron Loves Angela it didn’t slip under the radar and it quickly become known as one of the essential works of the new Black Cinema. Despite this, Three the Hard Way was only just released on DVD this past year, after being out of print on home video since a VHS release in the eighties. The DVD (part of the Urban Action Collection where it is matched up with Black Samson, Hot Potato and Black Belt Jones) features a sharp looking widescreen print of the film but no extras. Sadly the DVD is missing a sequence that runs about three minutes but all of the nudity and language are intact. The missing sequence (that should be between Kelly’s introduction and the car-wash shootout) is a jarring omission and it is truly unfortunate that Warner Brothers didn’t restore it for what is otherwise an essential DVD collection.
Three the Hard Way is Gordon Parks Jr’s most flat-out entertaining film. It perhaps isn’t as groundbreaking as Superfly, or as genre-bending as Thomasine and Bushrod, or as moving as Aaron Loves Angela but it’s an extremely exciting work and a great, great action film (which is exactly what Parks Jr. set out to make).
American cinema lost a true visionary when Gordon Parks Jr. was tragically killed in a plane crash less than five years after Three the Hard Way hit theaters. His four feature-length films stand as a vibrant tribute to his memorythough and are essential viewing for fans of American Cinema…to paraphrase a song The Beastie Boys Named after Three the Hard Way, Parks Jr certainly did ‘Rock the Motherfucker” and the stunning shock-waves can still be felt everytime one of his films is on.
Few filmmakers have ever fallen from critical and popular grace quite as fast as British-born director Hugh Hudson. A former documentary filmmaker and advertiser, Hudson received his first break in feature-length filmmaking when he acted as the Second-Unit Director on Alan Parker's chilling Midnight Express (1978). Within a year of working with Parker, Hudson got his chance to sit in the lead directors chair for a period piece focusing on two runners training for spots in the 1924 Olympic Games. That film was Chariots of Fire and it immediately became one of the most acclaimed films of its time, when it was released in 1981, and Hudson briefly became one of the most respected directors of the period.
