Canadian Jazz Grindcore: Hobo with a Shotgun

Posted by Jacob

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Everyone give a warm welcome to our newest addition on board the #filmswap hoveryacht, Jacob McConnell! Jacob asked me, as a sort of initiation into the ranks, to recommend to him the worst movie I could think of, "worst" being however I wanted to define it. 

In this case, I chose to go with "ethically worst". Hope you enjoy it!

Eric

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Hi, I'm Jacob, a friend of Eric and Dan. They invited me to be part of #filmswap and I wholeheartedly accepted.

Today I'll be discussing a movie about a vigilante who cleans up the streets with nothing but good intentions, steely blue eyes, and an inexhaustible amount of bullets: Hobo With a Shotgun.

Hobo With a Shotgun is the brainchild of director Jason Eisener and writer John Davies, a Canadian duo responsible for the short spoof trailer of the same name. Unlike its predecessor, popularized during the release of Tarantino's Death Proof and Rodriguez's masturbatory Return of the Living Dead tribute, Planet Terror, Hobo is a feature-length, high budget, exploitation genre movie.

The film lives up to its exploitaiton/grindhouse conventions: minimal, cheap set design, jarring blends of music in the score, equally jarring blends of dramatic talent, a script whose dialogue is punctuated with as many "fucks" as possible, goofy gore, and an oversaturated colour palette. Each of these would be detrimental to a lesser film, but they combine in a calculated way to create a really fun movie.

SPOILERS after the cut!

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Coming Up - 404 No Puns Found

Posted by Eric

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Coming up soon on #filmswap, I help Dan through the recovery period of having suffered through several weeks of waiting on my post, while he saddles me with some surrealism.

Dan's watching the blaxploitation classic, Across 100th Street, with Yaphet Kotto and Anthony Quinn:


Meanwhile, I dive into the 1950's and try to wrap my brain around the bizarre adaptation of Dr. Seuss' The 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T:


Follow Eric on Twitter: @fivedollardare
Follow Dan on Twitter: @korbermite

The Tragic Figure of Sarah - Thoughts on The Hustler

Posted by Eric

The only knowledge I had of The Hustler prior to watching it was that it was connected to The Color of Money, was about pool-sharking, and starred Paul Newman. Prior to #filmswap, I had never considered watching it, despite the tons of people who were telling me otherwise. I always take recommendations with a grain of salt, and I always second guess when people say something is a “classic”. That being said:

The Hustler is rightfully a classic film.

Motivations are clear, characters are nuanced, and most importantly, expectations are overturned and rewritten. One of the overarching notes of the film is how Eddie Felson is a pool shark with talent but no character. Bert, a professional gambler and shady opportunist, sees in him the same thing he sees in all the people he throws down his cash on – potential. He sees the possibility of turning Eddie into another money-making opportunity. But what could have been a simple film about a master and apprentice and his coming-of-age instead became something greater.

But it wasn’t the cool demeanor of Paul Newman, nor was it George C. Scott’s self-motivated Bert that convinced me of these qualities. It was in the tragic figure of Sarah.

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