Shloggs Speaks: Waingro Edition

I'm back on Profondo Cinema this week talking some latter career DeNiro. Heat and Ronin, Bobby D's last two good films are discussed at length.

In other news, I saw Immortals and enjoyed the hell out of it. It's paper thin when it comes to story and characterization, but overflowing with sumptuous art direction, breathtaking costume design and liberally fruity doses of masculinity. Cavill acquits himself well in the fight scenes and has a solid physical presence, but it's Rourke's show all the way. In a film replete with fashion models sashaying their washboard abs from one side of the screen to the other, old Mickey makes the biggest impression by proudly thrusting his middle aged gut and tree trunk arms about like the wizened and exhausted old warrior he plays and truly is. His voice in surround sound is a major selling point for me to get out to the theater and it's in fine form here. Sonorous, yet strangely brittle. Hoarse and full, imbuing palpable menace to every nut crushing soliloquy he delivers. The man is a joy in roles like this and I encourage all to check Immortals out. It does nothing to reinvent the wheel (hell, in some ways it removes integral spokes), but it sure doesn't skimp on ornamenting it.

I've also been frequently spinning my newly acquired Island of Lost Souls Bluray from Criterion. This is a brilliant pre-Hays code adaptation of Wells Island of Dr. Moreau with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi turning in great work against a surprisingly sordid and deliciously well shot backdrop. Laughton is amazing in the film, oozing out a performance at least 50 years ahead of its time in terms of subtlety, control and nuance. No one else acted this naturally in a film as transgressive and vulgar as this back then and it is truly a revelation to behold. Lugosi is pure animalistic pathos and his recitation of "the law" is as iconic as it gets, his intonation and energy dancing dangerously close to unaware self parody without ever toppling over into it. Erle C. Kenton directs forcefully and assuredly with a keen eye for shadow and mist that gives way to assaultive, confrontational horror in the rousing third act. Greg Mank provides a masterful commentary track full of fascinating insight and information. The new crown jewel of my collection.

Other than that, I've been revisiting the Karloff/Lugosi team-ups and following along with the aforementioned Greg Mank's fantastic book concerning the duo's "haunting collaboration" throughout the golden age of horror in the 30's and 40's. I have such respect, admiration and fascination for those two gentlemen actors of a bygone era. My love of the genre, and perhaps indeed film itself, begins with Dracula and Frankenstein. Flickering, black and white images seemingly piped in from another dimension. Slow, languid dream state memories of half forgotten childhood bedtime stories. My first memories to be precise. Well, that and Lou Ferrigno scaring the shinola out of me as The Hulk. To paraphrase Burroughs, "The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts".

Hope those that are interested give the podcast a listen and forgive me my hyperbolic, overeager exaltation of Heat. The film is so inextricably linked to an era when I could spend days with nothing to worry about save for crafting ever more amusing in jokes with my chums about Jon Voight's mullet and mustache combo, or the symphonic perfection of the name Waingro. VHS giving way to DVD giving way to bluray. The enhanced clarity and definition in corollary contradiction to the size of the group watching it. Time marches on and childish pastimes become ever more a solitary endeavor, to be rehashed and reminisced upon in perpetual podcast purgatory.