Legendary producer Philip D’Antoni only directed one film, The Seven-Ups, and it’s a gritty, gripping slice of ’70s crime.
The era is key: one of the biggest pleasures here is soaking up how fully the movie inhabits its time. You have Roy Scheider, one of the essential ’70s actors with one of the essential ’70s faces—expressive and full of character—in a role that riffs on his presence in another ’70s movie (the D’Antoni-produced The French Connection). You have fantastic photography of a grimy New York. You have one of cinema’s best car chases, coordinated by Bill Hickman, the man who did all of cinema’s other best car chases. You have cops and corruption. And you have a necessarily bleak ending, one where history and illusions burn away to leave something reduced and ghastly but enduring, like bones in a fire.
Scheider stars as Buddy Manucci, who heads up a special NYPD operation nicknamed “the Seven-Ups.” The team has a reputation for putting seemingly untouchable criminals away for long stretches. It also has a reputation for methods that are not, as Robert Burr’s staunch Lieutenant Hanes puts it, “correct.” When word gets out that some rogue cops are holding mobsters for ransom—and when one of the Seven-Ups catches a bullet during what looks like an attempted pay-off—Buddy is suddenly a hot potato no one wants to be caught holding, not even the men who were so proud of his results.
In a more traditional movie, Buddy would prove his good cop bona-fides—and avenge his fallen friend—by sorting out the kidnapping ring once and for all. Alternately, he could prove his bad cop bona-fides—all the whispers could be true, and he could be the criminal ringleader after all.
The Seven-Ups doesn’t thread the needle between those two possibilities as much as it takes us, steadily and unfussily, from one to another. Buddy really is “merely” a violent, rule-breaking maverick who gets results … and then he becomes something else, in a dark transformation that’s not complete until the film’s stunning final scene. (There’s only one flaw in those last few moments, and it’s not letting Scheider’s expertly delivered “No?” stand on its own.)
The man organizing the kidnappings, we soon find out, is Vito (Tony Lo Bianco), Buddy’s childhood friend and trusted informant. Lo Bianco is another French Connection alumnus, and he brings exactly the right energy to the part: his voice a little too wispy, his smoothness somehow still jagged. He’s likable—he even has a kind of haunted beauty to him, consumptive where Scheider is primal—but there’s something off beneath the surface. Vito takes the names Buddy gives him—local players he’s supposed to look into—and uses them for his own ends. He’s smart enough to do it, but not smart enough to get away with it forever.
The actual plot is spare, and that gives D’Antoni and his cast time to luxuriate in the details, whether they involve a precisely realized setting—police station blinds with tongue-in-cheek warnings about snipers scrawled on them—or the intimate specifics of brutality—a nasal cannula twisted away, a gun barrel dug into flesh. And in addition to having one of the best car chases, this may have the best car wash sequence, straight out of a horror movie in its score, tension, and defamiliarized eeriness. Even a surveillance wire flopping limply out of a pant-leg feels not only memorable but somehow grotesque. This is a world going wrong: “I’m coming apart, boys,” the cop with the loose wire says, but no one can hear him. We’ll end, too, with something unheard. It’s all come apart.
The Seven-Ups is streaming on Amazon Prime.
About the writer
Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Anthologized
Dan Duryea gets a shave and a second chance.
Anthologized
A little slice of American folklore that feels like it's been here all along.
Streaming Shuffle
You make your royal bed, and you lie in it.
Anthologized
Alone in vast space and timeless infinity: one man in a ghost town.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
We really need a “thumbs up” indicator for articles where we agree with everything and have nothing to add.
Though going back to Kojak after seeing The Seven-Ups does make for a case of TV in conversation with the movies. In “My Brother, My Enemy,” a new detective accidentally kills a kid while chasing a suspect. First Kojak gathers enough evidence to clear the cop of any criminal intent, but he realizes that things are still not what they seem. Like in The Seven-Ups, there are members of the brass talking to the media, and efforts to make the NYPD look good, and also a concern, especially on Kojak’s part, that hiding the truth about the cop is only going to make things worse for the department’s reputation. This plot gets a bit too complex for the show to neatly handle, but the end result is a fairly unsettling but not judgemental view of the cops. Or at least the cops not named Kojak. The cop at the center of things is played by a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone, who’s okay but lacks the soulfulness needed here. Also here is Charles Napier before his voice turned to gravel, and a cameo by Chas. Floyd Johnson, far better known as a producer of shows like The Rockford Files.
Frasier, “Daphne’s Room” – Frasier enters the one place in his apartment to look for a book, gets caught, tries to make amends, and things spiral from there. This could have turned into a cringeworthy episode, but the pitch perfect timing by pretty much everyone as things get worse, topped by the denoument of Frasier making amends by buying Daphne a car, is quite funny. Though the side plot of Niles and Maris fighting and making up gives Hyde-Pierce the best laughs.
I appreciate the thumbs up! And I really need to check out Kojak.
Identifying the 70s crime film as a style, much in the same way that noir defines the style of crime film in the 1940s, might be the hill where I plant my flag if my analytical prowess, such as it is, holds up. You are absolutely right about how an ambivalent sensibility moves across various media (and taste levels) in the decade, but this is also conveyed in a grimy visual palette and a treble heavy, grinding sound trak where diagetic ambient noise competes for dominance with the dialogue in the mix. I watched this Kojak episode last week, along with others, and it definitely fits in with this era and could not exist in any other.
For what it’s worth, Disqus used to have a similar feature to a thumbs up but in all the years of The Solute I hardly saw anyone but me use it.
Assault on Precinct 13
It was such a pleasure to watch this with a friend who’d never seen it before. Especially when she immediately assumed the little girl who doesn’t get her vanilla twist was destined to be a key hostage.
Anyway, this movie rules: one of my favorite Carpenter films and one of my favorite Carpenter scores. Tense, funny, textured, and lean without being bare-bones. Superb sense of space, great action choreography. Very hot smoking. I cannot believe that Laurie Zimmer didn’t have a better, longer career after this–she’s so smoky and riveting, and she has unbelievable chemistry with her co-stars. (At least I’m not the only one stunned by that, since there’s a Do You Remember Laurie Zimmer? documentary.)
It’s probably possible to make a boring siege movie, but I’ve never seen one.
The Shield, “Enemy of Good”
– One of my all-time favorite Ronnie lines (and one of my favorite David Rees Snell deliveries) in this episode: “He gonna get paid for today?”
– Vic introduces himself, Ronnie, and Shane to Doomsday: “I’m Armageddon. And these are the Hounds of Hell.” Shane: “Ruff.” Somehow not Vic: “Please go wait in the car, you’re embarrassing me in front of the criminal.”
– We have a Farmington resident realizing that Vic’s pride means you can reverse-psychology him into taking action on your behalf, and it’s a comedic beat that–like the S1 plot of the HOE –> SHOE graffiti love triangle–soon goes in some irretrievably dark directions. Vic’s technically trying to achieve something good by terrorizing Doomsday, but–as Shane points out–he botches it because he comes down like a hammer, an overreaction that produces an even more brutal overreaction in return. As a misapplication of dominance and a reckless attempt at ownage, it’s almost an early S4 Shane move, but Vic can’t recognize that. And nice touches in how the on-call team members react to it: Ronne mildly aghast but mostly treating it as a problem to be solved, Shane registering guilt, Vic embarrassed and defensive.
– There is something so bleakly comedic about Lem, fragile and moving like his soul hurts, coming back to the Barn and clearly expecting to have to sort out these questions about Terry … only to be immediately confronted with the fact that he’s wired and of course the Strike Team can barely go two minutes without casually implicating themselves in crimes. Kenny Johnson plays it so perfectly: you can clock him realizing how enmeshed they all are in this, how no conversation is safe. The contamination is everywhere, and he’s been breathing it in this whole time.
– Another perfect Lem moment: the camera cutting to him when Vic tells a witness that protecting a killer means you’re just as guilty as he is.
– Dutch is even more openly curious and concerned about Claudette’s health now–it’s hurting their partnership now, with the case faltering partly because she’s in and out (and checked-out, as he says, even when she’s there)–but Claudette’s not ready to tell him anything yet. The camera holding on her alone and weary, knowing she’s disappointing him but also feeling the smallness of that compared to the pain and dread and despair of her diagnosis–solemn and lovely. You can almost see her thinking, “I wish I could care about this more,” with all the bittersweetness that entails.
– Should’ve listened to Danny about the hoops, Tina.
– Kavanaugh making his threat against Lem double as a test of the surveillance system is a great, massively unsettling moment, a real “oh, you guys are up against it now” point.
– The Vic-Lem confrontation on the lawn is phenomenal, with Lem’s loyalty at his peak–he takes a real chance messing with his wire, even with the excuse of the scuffle, and he knows what the consequences could be–but his principles there too–he doesn’t have it in him to not demand the truth, even when some part of him knows he doesn’t want it. He’ll ask for it, but he won’t get paid for it. (Earlier, he asked Kavanaugh, “What’s in it for me?”, and it sounds so unnatural coming from him–when he throws away the chance to benefit from the talk he can’t help having, it confirms everything we know about who he is.) And Chiklis is, as always, incredible: Vic’s been on his back foot all episode, and now he’s knocked off his feet entirely, left stunned and sputtering. And he can’t lie to Lem, not like this, not with Lem already knowing and burning with pain and fury. (And not, maybe, with any chance that that wire is still working.)
– Another perfect Lem moments: the camera cutting to him when Vic tells a witness that protecting a killer means you’re just as guilty as he is.
A Shield moment that has deeply influenced my own fiction writing. You really can have your character say something that’s true, arrogant, hypocritical, and plot-moving all at once. It doesn’t matter at all if the character is right; it doesn’t reflect on Shawn Ryan (or the episode’s writer, who I can’t be bothered looking up) at all. It doesn’t matter what the character says, as long as it’s plausibly something they’d say and moves the story forward.
Oh, yeah, this is so pivotal. One of the greatest moves in writing is to give up trying to control what your audience thinks of you and to give up trying to control what they think of your characters.
Assault on Precinct 13 is so good. And while it may not be the originator of the fundamental plot hook, it’s like A Dangerous Game in that it’s become a forever-adaptable concept.
Most recently, I’m remembering how excited my husband was during our Supernatural rewatch when he realised we were getting an Assault episode with demons.
I think I remember that episode! And yeah, it’s just such a great recipe for compelling action.
Hacks, Season Three, Episode Nine, “Bulletproof”
Brutal, brutal drama. That Kayla stuff alone is hardhitting; her turning out to be the subject of bullying from a supposed friend wasn’t much of a shocker, but Jimmy immediately turning on this girl out of loyalty (and also, I assume, just not wanting to be around this asshole every day) was very funny and cool. And her saying she was basically in the wrong career and having her own moment of recognition was hard to watch but also made a lot of sense to me. I got why Jimmy tried to pull her back from it, but that would have been one of those hard-but-true moments for me (God knows I’ve had more than enough of them).
But Jimmy convincingly turning Kayla with the pitch that she’s a manager stuck in an assistant position was great, and a great example of his personal skillz (right down to him using the phrase ‘executive dysfunction’). And he’s not wrong! He convinced me that she has raw talent here. It’s interesting how much of Jimmy’s job is a mixture of loyalty, patience, and skills, with the skills being rooted in choosing the right words to appeal to the right audience.
And that’s secondary to Deb and Ava’s story! Deb is fundamentally pulling things on Ava that happened to her. As soon as Ava went to Helen Hunt, I realised exactly where the story was going. Ava’s confrontation with Deb at the end is the most powerful her rage has ever been – none of the self-important finger-wagging she started with, just complete focus on a goal with a specific cause and specific request for release. If an 8 is Al Pacino on the job in Heat, and a 10 is Al Pacino over Natalie Portman’s body in Heat, Ava is at a 9 – personally enraged but also in complete control.
Fistpumping at the end there, where Ava seizes her head writer position and now has a battle of control with Deb. Again, Jimmy is right here – and it’s amazing that they have a side character consistently giving the good advice and even played by the show’s creator work so well – when he points out that Deb protecting her show makes sense, and Ava being on that show makes sense. This is a show about the constant battle between one’s emotions and one’s reason. It’s funny actually – Deb really has trained Ava to be better than her.
Deb having a master key (and Christopher MacDonald’s outrage and exasperation) is so funny to me (“Now I gotta report it to the gaming commission, fill out all the paperwork…”). Similarly, right when I was thinking that Damien has been on this show like three seasons and not had much to do, he gets a scene where he outs himself as the Billings of the group (“I DON’T EVEN PAY MY OWN TAXES!”).
“I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO VENDORS.”
I’ve been looking forward to you hitting this episode for a while now, and this did not disappoint: in addition to the obvious Excellent in Ownage that is the Ava-Deb confrontation, I’m really glad you wrote up the Jimmy-Kayla plot, which winds up working so well. I can’t believe that after everything between them in S1–especially the subplot with Jimmy getting a pleasant, professional assistant only to lose him and get stuck with Kayla and anger management classes–I wound up so cheered and gratified by their new partnership. Also, Christopher MacDonald is one of the stealth delights of the show for me, so I’m always pleased to see his scenes mentioned.
But also: DEB AND AVA. (I love your Al Pacino in Heat scale. I suspect it can only go from 8 to 10.) Ava’s absolute control in that scene is so boss, and I love that she’s leveraging everything against Deb here, using Deb’s own mentorship and insights against her with a beautiful ruthlessness. Perfect end to the season.
Four. Words.
We’ve all been waiting eagerly for you to get to that closing scene.
Justified S4, “Foot Chase” – aww Boyd, you old romantic. Love that one of the sweetest scenes in the show so far occurs in the episode that also devotes a bunch of screen time to a guy’s amateurishly amputated leg.
Ted Lasso S3 E1-Amsterdam –
Season 2: Therapy is legitimate and characters are shown having positive results consulting them.
Season 3: Psychics are legitimate and a character witnesses specific, concrete predictions come true.
I guess they’re hoping we won’t connect these things? Or maybe Bill Lawrence has had good experiences with psychics.
Fit in about 1/3 the season during our Apple+ thieving, and having been made cautious by the reliable Captain Nath, I braced for the worst. And thus had a very pleasant time, so far! Granted, I’m working with less than half a season (and who knows when I’ll encounter an unguarded Apple+ to finish it), but so far I’m finding it better than season 2 – funnier and not as annoyingly cloying. My biggest gripe – I understand the idea that Ted has been brought in as an underqualified coach, but third year in he should not be professing complete ignorance of the sport’s biggest stars or basic strategies and rules – was finally addressed somewhat in the mega-sized travel episode.
One thing this series, which is otherwise pretty broad, is quite good at is capturing is the stakes of particular games during the season and an actual mystery around the outcome. Plenty of room to go awry, but so far I’m enjoying more than not.
The episode after the Amsterdam episode is probably the best of the season. The one after that is probably the worst.
Sounds like Jason Sudeikis also wrestled control of the show away from Lawrence around Season 3, right?
That’s what I heard, and I definitely preferred Lawrence’s overall vision to Sudeikis’s. S3 does have some good bits, but I feel like Lawrence had a vastly better sense of structure and dramatic incident.
100% co-sign this, season 1 was so well structured and carefully plotted. By season 3, even with a runtime long outpacing season 1, they’re just skipping over major plot-related dramatic scenes because those scenes don’t feel nice.
(And that’s before we get into how Jason Sudeikis’ issues about ex-wives and dating your subordinates creep into this season…)
I think maybe in season 2. Although I don’t know if it was “wrested” so much as Lawrence just wanted to devote more time to Shrinking. (I mean, I literally don’t know which one it was.)
Speaking of the 70s, I just finished a re-watch of THE CONVERSATION, and my comment on the sound mix below is probably subconsciously inspired by how embedded the sound design is foregrounded, and dramatized, in the text about yet another detective from the time period not fully understanding the reality of the situation he is observing. There is a lot of proletarian spatial decay on display here, and it’s creep into the protagonist’s space is unsettling and tragic, with a great final shot in which the central character’s Sax improvisation effortlessly blends into David Shire’s piano based score. The film works in juxtaposing the thriller beats and a character study of a guilt ridden wiretapper, although it lathers on the Catholic guilt thing as a primary motivator a bit pretentiously thick, but it does explain a degree of self sabotage that operates throughout the film.
Common Side Effects, “Dumpsite”
Finding myself more and more invested in Marshall and Frances and where their story is going. The funniest part for me though is probably Mike Judge’s performance as Rick, who gives him just enough of that proto-Mr. Anderson voice to let you know that, CEO or not, this guy is kind of a lummox.
SATURDAY
Streets of Fire
I was gifted this by essie last year for Movie Gifts back in The Solute.
I only just got around to watching it last weekend and I enjoyed it a great deal.
It’s hard not to when it starts with such a high note, with a pretty brilliant music video introducing us to the Richmond, the affluent part of the everywhere/every time town where this story takes place, and where a bunch of kids sporting atemporal 20th century fashions prepare for the concert of their lives. (Wikipedia calls the town a nearfuture retro dystopian city, though is pretty clearly a fantasy, closer to a medieval era or a western than the high tech visions that populated the 80’s.) Every part of this is top-notch. The editing is propulsive without excessive cutting, moving quickly from teens in the pre-game to the theater, to the band starting to play and finally the main event, while also allowing for neat flourishes in the transitions and crew credits. The music itself is high-energy 80’s rock pop from Jim Steinman, the kind that I never experience firsthand but that’s crystalized beautifully as it’s aged. Here it sounds young, vibrant and exciting, not just because of the music itself but thanks to the filmmaking, which uses all of the best filmmaking tricks of the early MTV era. And finally, we get our first glimpses of the cast, with Diane Lane playing a sexy, instantly attention-commanding singer, absolutely rocking the stage while a young but already deranged-looking Willem Defoe slowly emerges from the shadows, followed by a posse of street hoodlums. Backstage we get Rick Moranis as the band’s manager, whining from the start about doing a benefit concert that won’t get him much money. We soon learn that he’s dating Lane’s character but right away we see that this is not quite Moranis’ usual turn as a helpless nerd but rather a weeb with a high opinion of himself and little use for anyone else (or so he thinks). Also we meet a concert attendant played by Deborah Van Valkenburgh who doesn’t get much to do here or in the movie as a whole but will be important shortly; I mention her here because even without saying a word Van Valkenburgh has understated beauty and real presence, someone you see once and understand right away she’s one to watch.
The song ends and with a word from Defoe all hell breaks loose, with his thugs storming the stage and kinapping Lane. It’s a pure videogame moment, where a bad guy does a very bad thing seemingly only because he’s the bad guy and he lives to do very bad things with no one to stop him. This of course begets a rescue, and that’s where Lane’s former exboyfriend, ex-soldier Michael Paré comes into the picture, literally, as he comes back to Richmond right after the kidnapping to visit Van Valkenburgh, who just happens to be his sister. In pure outsider-comes-back-to-town fashion, Paré comes into Van Valkenburgh’s diner (which might as well be a cowboy saloon), gets into fights, bonds with another former soldier going through town played by Amy Madigan, then finally accepts his sister’s pleas to go and rescue Lane, but now without first negotiating with Moranis to get a hefty 10 grand for the deed. He recruits Madigan with the promise of a grand off the ransom money and has Moranis tag along since he’s the only one who knows the seedy part of town where Defoe’s gone to, and they’re off to the next level.
This is the heart of the movie, and as good a place as any for a few observations. First off, Paré soon emerges as the weak link of the cast here. He’s not bad for my taste (though he’s horribly, heavily overdubbed in at least a couple of scenes) but he’s got the driest personality and often comes across as little more than a big slab of beef. Still, he grew on me the more the movie went on and he pairs off with the rest of the cast in interesting ways. He and the tomboy Madigan immediately take a liking to each other, with both sharing a fighting disposition while having some interesting inner sensitiveness to them. Moranis is a big mismatch to both of them, clashing for most of the movie in a fun way. They make for a fun trio to watch, each of them reacting differently to one another and to the people and situations they meet. I think the cast eventually draws the best out of Paré’s limitations though he can be fun watch on his own, such as when he walks to the middle of a street and stops a bus with one hand.
Another key thing is that this is a story driven by youth and youthful desires. The rock music is a big part of this of course. Most of the characters here are old enough to have jobs in diners and bars, have served in the military or be on the cusp of potential superstardom but young enough that they’re still connected to teenagerdom. Their goals are to find love and make it big, and in the meantime they live to have sex and a good time. This would feel absurd if the movie treated itself as a serious drama, but instead it leans into artificiality of it all, not too removed from a teen drama except the setting prefigures the dark millieu of something like Burton’s Batman. It’s a fine line, but this kind of artificiality can become a special kind of hyperreality that I like a lot.
The main trio eventually find Lane, triggering the movie’s big action set piece at the thugs’ bar, where we’re also treated to another musical piece, a hot rock striptease and each character pulling their weight to rescue her. Defoe and Paré meet for the first time, ther former transfiguring into a devil with fire behind him, since the latter has blown up half the street. It’s an iconic scene that somehow hadn’t been sullied by familiarity for me. I guess if it was any ohter actor I’d come across it but Defoe has done so much cool shit this one hasn’t permeated. The trip back to Richmond is pretty eventful, as Lane bickers with Paré over him taking money to save her, while the group picks up more people, most notably a great black doo-wop band, The Sorels. Again, the videogame sense is strong, like an RPG where a main party falls backwards into adding more people than they probably should. The Sorels can really sing though, and an improptu piece on the bus makes for a great interlude.
They make it back to Richmond, where things settle for a while except for Paré, who stays sore with Lane for a while before a romantic gesture gets them kissing in the rain. Things don’t stay settled, as Defoe makes good on his promise and threatens the Richmond police and Paré accepts his duel, a one-on-one with sledgehammers in the middle of the street to settle everything. It’s a very good fight, with both duelists flanked by their people and the open street as an arena. Paré wins it and soon normality returns, with Lane being able to finish her concert. Paré makes his peace with her and Moranis and we’re treated to one last rock extravaganza with the Sorels making a contribution and Paré quietly bowing out. He’s done his thing here but Lane is meant for other things and he knows it. He an Madigan hop on his stolen car and drive off into the streets.
This was a very fun movie, more than the sum of its parts and the result of a delicate combo of tones. Certainly cult movie material but at its best, like in the concert and action scenes, as good as those get. Thanks again to Essie for the gift.
TUESDAY
Scavenger’s Reign
Season 1, Episode 1. “The Storm”. First time.
All three parties slowly make their way to the downed ship Demeter, finding big obstacles on their way. It’s hard to say which one is uglier: the ones who have to be ingested by a giant alien to avoid a storm only to have to fight alien bugs in the creature’s stomach, or the one who has drug-induced flashbacks to him being a huge asshole to his (deceased?) wife. Things are not looking up for anyone, and we haven’t even gotten to the damn ship.
Primal
Season 1, Episode 7. “Plague of Madness”. First time.
Once again, things start on a calm note, as we follow a placid argentinosaurus just having lunch and minding its business for a few minutes before a crazed zombie dinosaurs shows up, bites him and fucking dies. The argentinosaurus seems fine for a bit, then with a surprise cut we jump ahead and see him rotting green with his flesh falling out, bones sticking out and vomiting blood all over the place. It’s a quiet but highly effective horror on a show already full of such moments, and that’s before he slaughters his entire herd. Then, we get an understated comedic bit as the camera pans away from the massacre only for Spear and Fang to walk into the shot. These two knuckleheads have no idea.
The rest of the episode is the enormous zombie dinosaur chasing Spear and Fang through jungles, cliffs and caves for a day or so, all done with great impact. Spear and Fang are scared shitless for most of this episode, and with good reason as this is one big, ugly motherfucker. Eventually the zombie finds its demise in a huge lava pool, a big relief but also a sense of grief, since no one here wanted any of this. That was all just sickness; nothing you can do about that.
Aww, yeah, Streets of Fire. This is an excellent write-up, and I’m glad you got to experience that iconic Defoe moment unspoiled. I owe this a rewatch–I saw it before The Warriors but have now seen The Warriors more times, so I should revisit it and bring them neck-and-neck again.
Fuck yes Streets Of Fire! Excellent write-up, especially on how crucial the tone is — “another time, another place” for the fantastical setting but straight-up teen dream emotions within it. Including sex, this is both well within its PG rating and yet far more explicit than most fantasies, PG or otherwise, about desire. And I love that you singled out the opening, that is pure cinema and Hill has never been better even in a career of greatness.
And god damn, that Primal episode! I think horror this big is usually Lovecraftian and here, as you note, it is purely physical and that is what is so terrifying, how can you escape something this big and foul? But like you say, under that is the sadness that this monster is an accident with nothing to blame (like what millennia down the line would be evil polluters or something). It all just happens and the only thing to do is survive if you can.
I forgot to mention this but another thing here is that Spear and Fang finally find something that they can’t try and fight. It’s too big for Spear to do anything to and if Fang bit it she would only get infected and die the same way. To their credit they pick this up pretty quickly and realize the best they can do is run the fuck away.
Make Seven Ups Yours!
Great writeup. Lo Bianco’s slightly off-pitch vibe is also put to superb use in God Told Me To, which I’m now realizing may be the ultimate grim 70s procedural in terms of how high the corruption goes.
GOD TOLD ME TO might be the grimmest procedural of the era (which would be quite an accolade, indeed), but THE HONEYMOON KILLERS is without a doubt his grimmest 70s film.
Year of the Month update!
March is going to be Silent Era Month, where you can join these writers in examining your favorite silent movies and anything else from the 1910s and ’20s!
Mar. 4th: Lauren James: The Most Dangerous Game
Mar. 11th: Bridgett Taylor: Something Fresh
Mar. 15th: Sam Scott: One Week/The High Sign/The Electric House
Mar. 20th: Cori Domschot: Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Mar. 24th: Tristan J. Nankervis – Birth of a Nation
Mar. 26th: Sam Scott: Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie
Mar. 27th: Lauren James: The Well of Loneliness
Mar. 31st: John Anderson: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
And in April, we’ll be movin’ on up to 1999, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
Apr. 7th: J. “Rodders” Rodriguez: The Scooby Doo Project
Apr. 16th: Sam Scott: Spongebob Season 1, Wakko’s Wish, Elmo in Grouchland, and/or Bartok the Magnificent
Apr. 28th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Sixth Sense
Callout for Solute alumni and New Members. Captain Nate and I are bringing back the online Happy Hour!!!. I am tentatively scheduling this for Thursday, March 13th at 5pm Pacific Time. If this is your first time, drop me an email at [email protected] or comments below. I will also send out some reminders. In any event let me know if you plan on attending.
Yay! 🎉
Oh I’m in.
I should be in!
I need to check on moving one thing around, but I think I can make it work!