...in my living room.

A sultry and suspenseful short directed by friend and fellow KC resident (and former BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES writer), Mitch Brian.


Rhubarb Pie from Todd Norris on Vimeo.

I will see this.

My son wants to see that new CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE movie. Think I'll make him watch this instead.



Via

I will need to see this.  More info here.

This guy makes Billy Jack look like a pussy.

Go see this if you get the chance.

This is the story of 1970’s action legend Black Dynamite. When “The Man” murders his brother, pumps heroin into local orphanages, and floods the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor, Black Dynamite is the one hero willing to fight all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House.

Here's a movie that's just dying to be remade. And I would sure love to write it. Thanks to Jason Latour for turning me on to this flick.

Kris Kristofferson plays a struggling musician who's been busted for selling weed but is trying to go straight. Gene Hackman is the narc who busted him. When Hackman needs some cash, he steals a metric fuck-ton of weed and gives it to Kristofferson to sell, putting a gun to his head and telling him he needs to make ten thousand dollars in two days or he's dead. The movie kind of falls apart at the end (I kept waiting for the guys Hackman ripped off to show up, gunning to get their weed back, but they never did), but how great a set-up is that?

On another note, how cool is Kris Kristofferson? If I was to come up with five people, living or dead, I'd want to invite over for dinner, you better believe he'd make the list.

In the first part of our Director’s Commentary, Guéra talked about a couple of the movies that were big influences on his vision for SCALPED, namely the westerns HOMBRE and ULZANA’S RAID. For my part, there were lots of films I watched and re-watched while working on the first volume of SCALPED, including TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA (one of my top five all-time favorite crime films), BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (Peckinpah’s woefully unrecognized masterpiece), HOMBRE (just like Guéra), VALDEZ IS COMING, RUSH, UNFORGIVEN, COCKFIGHTER (I love me some Warren Oates), TOKYO DRIFTER, POINT BLANK, THUNDERHEART (still not a very good movie), INCIDENT AT OGLALA, SKINS, THE GREAT SILENCE, ROADHOUSE (“Pain don’t hurt”), BILLY JACK (You betcha), DANCES WITH WOLVES (Fuck you, it’s a good movie)… But there’s only one film I’d list as a true influence on the series (meaning there's one I most obviously ripped off), and that’s 1990’s STATE OF GRACE.



If you haven’t seen STATE OF GRACE, then stop reading now and go get it. You can probably find the DVD for about ten bucks at your local Target, so it’s not a big investment, and you’ll be getting one of the finest crime films of the last 20 years.

If you have seen STATE OF GRACE, then the connection to SCALPED should be obvious: guy returns to his old neighborhood and falls in with the local criminal element, but unbeknownst to them he’s really an undercover cop. In STATE OF GRACE, that cop is played by Sean Penn, the criminals by Ed Harris and Gary Oldman, and the setting is the Irish-American neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen. Inspired by the real-life escapades of the Westies, who for years were one of New York’s most brutal criminal organizations, STATE OF GRACE is a gritty and explosive little masterpiece directed by Phil Joanou, who’s only other career highlight was directing U2’s concert film, RATTLE AND HUM. Not only does STATE OF GRACE give you Penn, the finest actor of his generation playing an undercover cop in way the fuck over his head, but you also get Harris at his most intense and Oldman at his most fucking manic. The three of them together snarl, curse, howl, fight, drink, fuck and murder their way through 134 minutes, chewing up every bit of scenery in their midst (though you do still get shining moments from Robin Wright Penn and the great John C. Reilly, and even a terrific little scene with Burgess Meredith). Then there’s the haunting score by Ennio Morricone. And the Peckinpah style editing. And the climax. Goddamn, the climax. I just fucking LOVE a scene where you have a group of tough as nails motherfuckers, all getting together to scour the fucking earth for the guy who’s fucked them over, and then lo and behold, that very guy comes strolling in the front door, calm as can be, armed with a gun and balls of fucking steel. UNFORGIVEN played that for all it was worth, of course, but STATE OF GRACE did it first. (I tried to open SCALPED #1 with a similar type of scene, but just didn’t pull it off right. My bad.)


Still, it wasn’t just the storyline from STATE OF GRACE that influenced SCALPED, but also the moral ambiguity of the characters (I just eat that shit up) and the importance of the setting (obviously). Put all that together with the Leonard Peltier story and dashes of James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, Cormac McCarthy and HBO’s “The Wire,” and you’ve got SCALPED. Or at least, what I’m trying to do with SCALPED.

Thanks to all the people who’ve been picking it up. The best is yet to come.

With the fifth issue of SCALPED out this week, completing what will be the first trade paperback collection, I thought it was a good time for Guéra and I to do something like a "Director's Commentary" and talk about some of the movies, books and songs that have influenced our work on the series. First up, here's Guéra talking about a couple of films that have had a profound influence on his style.


Hello.

Looking at SCALPED as a reader, Jason & me are trying our hardest to make our statement of it. But as Scalped artist, I say that possibly the best thing about that is that we maybe don't know it. It must be consequence & not the objective.

Because it is only then it does happen.

Who has time for statements anyway, we worry about this word inside that dialogue, about that boot, shirt, violence level, hairstyle. Life itself gives material impossible to spend (not in one lifetime, anyway). In creating something, honesty is the best.

Second best is (all) the rest - and most of it are other artists work: music, books, lyrics, movies, etc. Admiring them & wanting to be like them is how we all started. I also think that there's honesty in letting those influences flow through our work.

Here, I'll say one about movies. Regarding SCALPED, mine are westerns.

There are (too) many of them that could represent at least some part (each) of my drawing aims in SCALPED. WILD BUNCH, THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE, HUD, MCCABE & MRS. MILLER, but also SEVEN SAMURAI and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (as maybe the strongest black/white statements I ever saw), or relatively recent THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, UNFORGIVEN... God, the list could be endless. Their feel (whatever this could mean - it's definitely existent in me) is deep inside & I love them all, but are there ones that could represent me? Myself.

I mean is that possible, knowing I'm not the one who made them?

Yes it is. Two.

First is made on Elmore Leonard's book, scripted by Irving Ravetch & directed by Martin Ritt.

HOMBRE is the movie that changed me. It's where I understood how to "be what I am", at the same time respecting what others are. Things come and go, but the ones that change you, they stay. With years I'm more & more positive about it.

It's a movie from '67., tho I first saw it pretty late (I simply dunno how did I miss watching it before, but of course it's NEVER too late for things like these): at New Years Eve party of old '84. to new '85. People all around, loud music, I still don't know how did it hit me that hard in that ambient, but it did.

I hated the party, I suppose.

Besides one of the purest storytelling sense I ever saw (unstoppable simplicity), - Martin Ritt has no "big" visual style, and it fits simply perfectly the main character played by Mr. Newman. In other words, this film is as it's hero is, & as a consequence of this fact, it's really close to be called perfect. Calmed, but no nonsense. Strong even when humored. Real life aimed all the time. Direct. Wonderful.

Once really inside of you, there's no cure for it.

Second is made on Alan Sharp's script & directed by Robert Aldrich. Based on true events.

ULZANA'S RAID also made changes in me. Made me forget lots of next New Years' eves in times to come. When you (are ready to) face maturity in art you "consume", lots of things lose their urgency & importance.

And this one hits forehead directly.


Mr. Lancaster never looked as believable as in role of McIntosh (to me, he's like William Holden in "Bunch" - right now Pike Bishop is simply impossible to imagine performed by somebody else. He is Pike.), and Ke-Ni-Tay's face lines (actor Jorge Luke) - if looked closely - echo pretty clearly on Dashiell Bad Horse.

Last 5 minutes of this movie STILL are difficult for me "just to see", better put - NOT to feel. Even today, even after seeing it so many times. And I'd really like to avoid words about it's last 30 seconds & one small peace of paper there.

This film (as a whole) - to me - can be only compared with Kurosawa's heights (or, if you want it more inside the family, with RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, by the master himself). It really unites all elements I ever liked in (all) other westerns. Subject, dialogues, aesthetics, rhythm, sequences as a whole - first time seen it, I had this blush feel that it spoke too much about my own secrets. The ones I considered as mine only, as my invisible strength & if I once let the world see full light & energy of those - it'll be conquered & won.

I really was ready to mature, wasn't I?

OK.

These movies definitely are not the genres-best I've seen, or the most this, or the magnificent that. No. What makes them closest to me - is intimate thought they're above categorizations. If you really understand them, you don't care one bit about categories. You have the feel they're for you - whoever you may be - and THAT is what they're helping you understand.

So, if (my) SCALPED visuals succeed in showing richness out of average, or in avoiding spectacular about real, or if they simply show it as it is - it'll help me achieve two things. One is returning some from what I got from those two above, & second, the beginning of this all: honesty in work.

This is the aim alright & if I ever succeed, one of you please tell me.

Thanks. (especially to you Jason my bud, for generously inviting me
here)


R.M. Guéra
April 2007
Barcelona, Spain