MLB Power Rankings

Power Rankings as of 6/15/11:

# TEAM NAME (Record) (Previous Rank)

1. Philadelphia Phillies (41-26) (-)

2. Boston Red Sox (39-27) (11)

3. San Francisco Giants (38-29) (4)

4. New York Yankees (37-28) (9)

5. Atlanta Braves (38-30) (7)

6. Milwaukee Brewers (38-30) (18)

7. St Louis Cardinals (38-30) (8)

8. Detroit Tigers (37-30) (10)

9. Arizona Diamondbacks (37-31) (26)

10. Tampa Bay Rays (36-31) (5)

11. Cincinnati Reds (36-33) (6)

12. Cleveland Indians (35-30) (2)

13. Texas Rangers (36-32) (14)

14. Toronto Blue Jays (33-34) (17)

15. Seattle Mariners (34-34) (29)

16. Florida Marlins (32-34) (3)

17. Pittsburgh Pirates (33-33) (22)

18. Chicago White Sox (33-35) (23)

19. New York Mets (33-34) (24)

20. Los Angeles Angels (33-36) (12)

21. Baltimore Orioles (30-34) (19)

22. Colorado Rockies (32-35) (13)

23. Washington Nationals (31-36) (21)

24. San Diego Padres (30-39) (19)

25. Los Angeles Dodgers (31-38) (20)

26. Kansas City Royals (30-37) (16)

27. Oakland A's (28-40) (14)

28. Minnesota Twins (26-39) (30)

29. Chicago Cubs (27-39) (25)

30. Houston Astros (25-43) (28)

BLACK DYNAMITE (2009) - the man who takes on The Man

BLACK DYNAMITE

(2009, USA)

This is already my favourite spoof of the blaxploitation era because it's the funniest and also the most accurate recreation. To be more precise, it's a homage to the sub-genre where one man takes on all the odds - Shaft, Superfly, The Mack... as opposed to the films where women took on all the odds - Coffy, Foxy Brown, Cleopatra Jones... and nothing to do with the horror subgenre where every iconic monster movie (up till then) was remade for a black audience.

Black Dynamite is a labour of love and is itself low-budget. One of its many strengths is the script, cleverly weaving in so many familiar elements from the originals, as well as layering in the technical distractions the original actors would have had. It's as much an homage to lowest-budget cinema of this era, as it is to this particular genre, making it accessible to anyone with a fleeting experience of early 70s exploitation.

The star, Michael Jai White (Spawn himself), co-wrote the story and the script. A dream role for someone who obviously enjoys the films as an actor and a martial arts stunt performer. The huge cast includes a short cameo from Arsenio Hall (Coming To America), and Sally Richardson-Whitfield (I Am Legend) as Gloria, Dynamite's 'black power' girlfriend.

While many of the action scenes are played for laughs, Michael Jai White also demonstrates dangerous-looking nunchuck and kung fu action in some very impressive long-take fight scenes. While he's aiming at channeling Jim Kelly (Black Belt Jones, Enter The Dragon), he more closely resembles a pumped-up Shaft, which is no bad thing.

The fashions, the language, the hairstyles are funny because they're accurate, rather than exaggerated. When shoes and hair are that high, they don't need to be any bigger. And the soundtrack is so accurately done, I had a hard time telling new music from old - new songs were recorded using authentic analogue techniques and contemporary instruments. They blend completely with library movie music in favour at the time.

Similarly, stock footage of explosions and stunts intercut smoothly with the intentionally 'badly shot' footage. Not since House of the Devil will you be so confused knowing what year you're looking at. Cleverly, they didn't create the look the hard way - by degrading the footage electronically, but by shooting it all on a 16mm stock, a grainy and very contrasty look that matches cheap 1970s' 35mm.

Faltering zooms, microphones peeking into view... aren't laid on too thick and are sometimes so subtle that they make the actual onscreen goofs look intentional. There's one fantastic back-projection gag that made me yearn for more Police Squad!

It's all too short. Several scenes have been abbreviated into montages to keep the story snappy, though after seeing the deleted scenes play out in their entirety, you can see that they weren't working or funny enough.

I'd enjoyed the more sporadic spoofs like Undercover Brother and Austin Powers in Goldmember which played the giant afros for laughs. But this is an intensive, better researched, reverential movie for fans of the originals who enjoy and embrace their style, music and politics.

Released last year on DVD, this is also available on blu-ray in the US and Germany. The DVD has deleted scenes, and some fun, informative featurettes on the movie and music production that don't outstay their welcome.

The Black Dynamite trailer is still live on Icon Home Entertainment's website for the movie.

I previously waded into the blaxploitation horror film cycle here.

DOCTOR BLOOD'S COFFIN (1961) - now on DVD

DOCTOR BLOOD'S COFFIN

(1961, UK)

Zombie or Frankenstein story? You decide...

I enjoy this more each time I see it. Originally sought out after seeing a spooky photo of a man fighting something moulderingly undead in Denis Gifford's Movie Monsters. Seeing it, at first on late-night TV, the story was disappointing in that the punchline doesn't appear sooner. But a recent less-cut version on TV added just enough to make this a low-budget b-movie nasty, with the spectacular Hazel Court sealing the deal for fans of sixties Brit horror.

A string of disappearances from a small village in Cornwall. The local police are stumped but we can easily guess what's going on, even though the assailant attacks from the shadows, the bloody title completely gives it away. Doctor Blood is up to no good.

Yes, it's Kieron Moore (he doesn't smile like this in the movie) who usually plays a shouty, grumpy, no-nonsense hero, more realistically cast as a shouty, grumpy, no-nonsense villain. (You're all wrong, I'm right, I can do what I like. To hell with medical ethics and human lives...)

Before even the opening titles, only thirty seconds pass before Kieron starts shouting. This isn't to say I don't find him watchable, this lack of charisma in a leading man is as unintentionally entertaining as it is a mystery. Here he's a serial murderer who radically experiments on his subjects while they're not only alive, but still awake! The clumsy storyline reveals his morally-bankrupt identity before he starts wooing the heroine. How are we supposed enjoy their romantic day out? It's not played as suspense, like Hitchcock would have done, but as a budding new relationship.

There's another amusing mis-step when one of the kidnapped spends a long twenty minutes clawing his way out of a subterranean surgery. The narrative keeps returning to the crawling character like a running gag - nope, still not getting anywhere. In addition, if this had been a Roger Corman flick, the abductees would be the scantily-clad daughters of the village, not a bunch of wheezy old extras.

The bad doctor is so focused on his 'work' that he doesn't even widen his hunting ground, leaving the police in a spin as to which kidnap victim they're supposed to be looking for. Also, anyone who gets in his way quickly winds up in Dr Blood's coffin. He never thinks through the details, like alibis. His trail of clues is clumsy and inefficient, much like his wooing.

The picturesque Cornish locations make a welcome change from Black Park and the suburbs of London and, despite the interiors being shot in Walton Studios, the sets all look authentic and blend in.

There's blood and even a little gore, which would have leapt off the screen in Eastmancolour at the time, presuming it wasn't snipped by the censor. The special make-up for the result of Blood's experiments (above) looks really very good, more convincing than anything that later appeared in Night of the Living Dead, and it was duly splashed across the publicity art.

To compensate for Kieron Moore's heartless lack of charisma, Hazel Court amply warms up the screen as Nurse (Nosey) Parker. The late actress is so utterly professional that she can answer the phone with, "Dr Blood's surgery", without a hint of camp or irony. Court appears here just after starring in Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein and The Man Who Could Cheat Death, and just before a winning run of American horrors, appearing in three of Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe cycle - The Premature Burial, The Raven and The Masque of the Red Death.

Interesting to see future director Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now) rise from camera operator on Doctor Blood's Coffin, to director of photography on The Masque of the Red Death three years later. Visually there are a few interesting slants - low camera angles, deep focus, peeking through things and sometimes tilting the action (known as 'dutch angles'). Director Sidney J. Furie repeated and exaggerated this style for his best movie The Ipcress File (1965).

Dr Blood is one sick little bunny - you don't see everything he gets up to, but he's a sadistic, vengeful, oblivious fan of human experimentation. He's nastier and less likable than many of the movie Dr Frankensteins. His carelessness indicates he's more psychopathic than calculating. While the direction and script are slack, there's enough here to make it worth a look.

Update November 2011: MGM made-on-demand service have released it on DVD-R. Full review shortly! I'm certainly not recommending the Alpha Video release in the US. It has also recently aired on TCM and Netflix in the US.

This fantastic French poster is from sci-fi/horror poster site Wrong Side Of The Art.

An original movie trailer on YouTube...

VANISHING POINT (1971) - a high speed trip

VANISHING POINT

(1971, USA)

He's delivering a Dodge Challenger to San Francisco. The owner is gonna be pissed...

Barry Newman appeared in two very different action movies, both involving extended tyre-ripping car chases.  Fear Is The Key and Vanishing Point kept re-appearing in cinemas throughout the seventies as welcome supporting features and I was lucky enough to catch it on the rebound. Its images lodged in my subconscious, but I wasn't sure whether I'd still enjoy it 25 years later.

As a teenager I accepted many films at face value - either they were entertaining or they weren't. A movie that was one long car chase was certainly entertaining, Kowalski, the guy being chased by the police, was obviously the guy whose side I was on. I wasn't analysing it all for subtexts or reading any of the characters as metaphors for facets of society - a friendly biker, a madman in a sports car, a church of Jesus in the middle of the desert...

So what on Earth did I, as a young teenager, make of the drugs, the music and the naked girl on a motorbike? As far as I recall, I completely missed the drugs reference, enjoyed the music, and simply assumed that some people in the American deserts ride around naked. This was still a time when peaceful counter-cultures and hippy ideals were frequently presented in mainstream movies. The bikers, the music, and the mind-blown vibe helped teach me more about the anti-establishment than the establishment, and the wilds of Nevada looked like a better place than deepest, darkest suburbia.

But as a result, I didn't want to try drugs, drop out, live in the desert, get a bike or even drive a fast car, but I was certainly open to the laidback attitude and, well, just how friendly everyone could be. That is, except the racist rednecks, the police, and the villainous homosexuals. The positively bizarre gay characters are necessary for a plot point, but they don't need to be gay. They certainly don't need to wear pink shirts, act like nellies or carry handbags (give me a break). The celebrated documentary on gay representation in cinema, The Celluloid Closet, heavily criticised the scene. I can't wait to hear director Richard Sarafian talk about it on the commentary track...

Vanishing Point is an example of an 'arthouse' movie that can be exciting and entertaining. Could you get a wide release of a movie like this today? It's certainly 'of its time', an experimental story - an example of a road movie that you can join for the ride and see what happens.

The other comparable title that springs to my mind is Jack Cardiff's Girl On A Motorcycle, which is more like a travelogue. It also ducks out of the journey into multiple flashbacks to hint at the character's backstory. Vanishing Point improves on it in many ways, making it a high-speed chase rather than just a trip from a to b. It also looks like Barry Newman is actually driving, which Marianne Faithfull never did. It also removes the never-ending prose, as we hear her thoughts spelling out bloody everything.

I'm less familiar with Easy Rider, which Girl On A Motorcycle also predated. Easy Rider hasn't got the constant pursuit driving it, and the soundtrack wasn't as appealing to me. While it's easily the most famous of this 'genre', I'm more devoted to Vanishing Point and Electra Guide In Blue, which I'll revisit soon.

The music, the characters, the cinematography make this an experience, and of course there's the driving...

A regular component in car stuntwork in sixties and seventies cinema is Carey Loftin. He worked on this, Bullitt, Duel, The French Connection, Fear Is The Key, Grand Prix, Diamonds Are Forever, The Getaway and even The Love Bug. Wow. His specialty seems to be not just stuntwork, but really high speeds. The cars drive fast, there's no sneaky sped-up filming - what you see is what you get. Blistering handbrake turns, near misses, leaps, side bumping, chopper chases...

There are some spectacular wipeouts along the way but, A-Team style, there are no casualties. The police don't have much on Kowalski but they chase him to the state border anyway - like Smokey And The Bandit, literally on speed.

Barry Newman is Kowalski, a character sat halfway between straight society and a hippy commune. Strange that the actor should star in two movies then move back to TV for two seasons as a pro-active lawyer in Petrocelli. His blissed-out vacant look from behind the wheel is haunting. Also check him out as a tough guy in the action thriller Fear Is The Key (1972).

Kowalski is championed and guided by 'Super Soul', a blind DJ (Cleavon Little, before Blazing Saddles) who warns him about 'the blue meanies' over the radio. Theirs is the strongest, almost telepathic relationship in the story. If Little hadn't been an actor, he'd have been a storming DJ. In the rest of the cast, one of the nastier cops is played by Paul Koslo, who was also dependable 'Dutch' in The Omega Man, filmed the same year. In the desert, there's an almost unrecognisable Dean Jagger (the quasi-Quatermass of X-The Unknown).

On the soundtrack, among the country music names I didn't know, are Kim Carnes, Rita Coolidge and Burt Reynolds collaborator, the late Jerry Reed. This isn't my kind of music, but I still enjoy the soundtrack. Coincidentally, it's been recently released on CD from Harkit Records. The original vinyl front and back covers are shown above and below.

After watching the UK DVD (below), the sights, sounds and stunts have inspired me to upgrade to the blu-ray, which also offers the longer US cut which features Charlotte Rampling in the additional scenes. I'm also looking forward to the making-of documentary, and hearing the director's commentary track on the blu.

Here's an original trailer on YouTube (the DVD and blu-ray is presented in 1.85 widescreen)...

I'm not even going to mention the 1997 TV movie remake with Viggo Mortensen and Jason Priestley...

One Million Hits A.D.

This week Black Hole Reviews blogsite had it's millionth hit on the steady old Hit Counter (bottom of every page). To mark the occasion, and by way of a totally self-indulgent thank you to all visitors to these pages, here's something from my archives.

It's a scratch video to an obscure early-80s band called The Sleeping Lions. I used to edit bits of favourite films, recorded off TV, to new songs for a closed-circuit student TV station, to promote new music which I didn't have promo clips for.

This was really enjoyable, editing moving images to music - I didn't synch images to lyrics very much, usually just riffing on the title of the song. I'd edit two or three of these every week, but tried very hard to synchronise movements and edits to the music as often as possible, with non-frame-accurate equipment.

Edited on low-band u-matic and archived on trusty old VHS, this includes clips from TV showings of The Killer Elite, Moonraker, Rollerball, the first trailer for The Empire Strikes Back, preview clips of Blade Runner, Fantasia, and a making-of Raiders of the Lost Ark special effects documentary.

Bear in mind, this was made in February of 1983...

Thank you!

Woody Allen's early funny ones

My article about six of Woody Allen's earlier, funnier, practically slapstick comedies is up on the Park Circus blog. With his new one Midnight In Paris just premiered at Cannes, and a Blogathon kicking off today, hosted over at Cinema_Fanatic, it's a good time to enjoy a Woody.

Park Circus is an international sales and distribution company with a huge movie archive. Freelance writer Jonathan Melville invited me to contribute some appreciations of Park Circus' older classics as a guest blogger.

Follow the link for my overview of Casino Royale (1967), What's New Pussycat, Bananas, Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex, Love and Death and the sci-fi comedy Sleeper here on Park Circus.

ANIMA MUNDI (1992) - a short addition to KOYAANISQATSI

ANIMA MUNDI

(1992, USA)

Like a missing chapter from Koyaanisqaatsi, director Godfrey Reggio assembled this film from stock footage, again commissioning a soundtrack from Philip Glass and again angling for an underlying theme of the natural world against mankind. If you've enjoyed the 'qatsi trilogy', this closely follows their template.

Commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund, (the original WWF), the remit was to present the diversity of animal life - ugly and beautiful, peaceful and aggressive, microscopic and huge. It's an intense montage of spectacular footage without any voiceovers or captions. In turns funny, eerie and astonishing, but with fewer surprises for anyone who watches a lot of animal documentaries, it's the music that makes this a hypnotic experience, despite its relatively short running time.

The repeated images of animals in close-up, staring straight at the camera, at the viewer, intercut with decimated rainforests, hits harder than the voiceovers that often wrap-up nature documentaries. After the smouldering levelled forest, we're face to face with a tiger or a chimpanzee. They look intelligent but helpless, weary of the destruction, patiently waiting for it to stop. Anima Mundi may best be watched as a support feature for Koyaanisqatsi.

Apparently this was only once released on DVD in 1998 (pictured at top), an all-region NTSC release with non-anamorphic 1.85:1 letterbox widescreen. The transfer isn't the highest quality, possibly only from an analogue source, and the compression is particularly poor for the first few shots of the film. But after that it's perfectly watchable and good enough to engross. But only 28 minutes long with no extras.

The best-known remnants from this project are two tracks from Philip Glass' score which were repeated in The Truman Show (1998), which also recycled cues from his Mishima (1985) and Powaqqatsi (1988) soundtracks.

My review of Koyaanisqatsi (1983) is here.

Notes on Anima Mundi on Philip Glass' website here.