cult film freak: david bowie

Showing posts with label david bowie. Show all posts

Written by James M. Tate / 8/13/2022 / No comments / action , adventure , art evans , clu gulager , dan aykroyd , david bowie , eighties , irene pappas , jeff goldblum , john landis , kathryn harrold , michelle pfeiffer , neo noir , stacey pickren , thriller

DIRECTOR JOHN LANDIS EIGHTIES NEO-NOIR OF 'INTO THE NIGHT'

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVyIH_kUIfWmtDeFRr9OWVAt-uXjeLJZRPBU-ejJOtoHEeaVK6tl93TMBwsY7v8kAimtmsnd9S1IDJ1qqjpA3-HDnIzN9NxtqaxaDqe5Ws8dk6HL3c6kIVRRi0n6paRNyqfzqarkG6aGVe6snexSCeTe-lRluvKspveSsrxk0wRne49gzJgkmbYB2PYJl/s1820/Screen%20Shot%202026-08-04%20at%2012.27.48%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1820" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVyIH_kUIfWmtDeFRr9OWVAt-uXjeLJZRPBU-ejJOtoHEeaVK6tl93TMBwsY7v8kAimtmsnd9S1IDJ1qqjpA3-HDnIzN9NxtqaxaDqe5Ws8dk6HL3c6kIVRRi0n6paRNyqfzqarkG6aGVe6snexSCeTe-lRluvKspveSsrxk0wRne49gzJgkmbYB2PYJl/s1600/Screen%20Shot%202026-08-04%20at%2012.27.48%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: INTO THE NIGHT Director: John Landis Year: 1986 Rates: ****1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>The same year Martin Scorsese took a break from edgy dramas to make the humorously frantic neo noir AFTER HOURS, John Landis broke from full-comedy for his own active noir, INTO THE NIGHT, and both have a passive male thirty-something within the lively depths of an enigmatic big city albeit Los Angeles instead of New York... Meanwhile the most intriguing sequences occur before the hopelessly cheated-on insomniac Jeff Goldblum, as morosely spaced-out aerospace engineer Ed Okin, gets thrust into blind adventure with jobless model Diana played by the incredibly gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer... a flaky pawn whose connection gets murdered in an airport parking lot, where Ed's possibly awaiting a quick flight that co-worker Dan Aykroyd said would...

action, adventure, art evans, clu gulager, dan aykroyd, david bowie, eighties, irene pappas, jeff goldblum, john landis, kathryn harrold, michelle pfeiffer, neo noir, stacey pickren, thriller

DIRECTOR JOHN LANDIS EIGHTIES NEO-NOIR OF 'INTO THE NIGHT'

Title: INTO THE NIGHT Director: John Landis Year: 1986 Rates: ****1/2 The same year Martin Scorsese took a break from edgy dramas to make th...

STAYING AWAKE FOR THE JOHN LANDIS NOIR INTO THE NIGHT

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpoKKhPK8ccjftfV7QQYIa19mG0nQ7TYTv0aJtr1To2aZL_ln5ez9GIaL2hmpo6nf_tWr5nVRL-D0JLnYDwA6tXHpsiOzxD3-ZhFAmBLEj5pIkTMlI4T6zLaHSQJe39whQTImRX5xMkE/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpoKKhPK8ccjftfV7QQYIa19mG0nQ7TYTv0aJtr1To2aZL_ln5ez9GIaL2hmpo6nf_tWr5nVRL-D0JLnYDwA6tXHpsiOzxD3-ZhFAmBLEj5pIkTMlI4T6zLaHSQJe39whQTImRX5xMkE/s400/3.jpg" width="271"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clu Gulager's take on things</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ed Okin, our hero/pawn in the John Landis Neo Noir INTO THE NIGHT, works as an Aeronautical Engineer, which, by the looks of his workplace, with certain pictures around the white walled interior, might have to do with the space shuttle: And a tragic, coincidental irony is that Challenger exploded the year after this movie hit theaters with a box office thud, and famously, or infamously, in Landis's previous venture, a segment of the highly anticipated TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, actor Vic Morrow and two children were killed in a helicopter accident... 
 
Going behind the scenes... of this website... in meeting John Landis at a horror genre convention (his AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is an all-time classic), the first thing he said as he prepared to sign the B.B. King-laden album soundtrack (pictured to the right and below), was: "You know, this was my first financial failure," and then he offered a cookie. "Wanna cookie?" he asked, holding one up with a sly Felix the Cat grin. And while hanging with classic veteran actor Clu Gulager in a parking lot of the same venue, the Burbank Marriott Hotel, but on a different date, he stated that John Landis probably needed a lot of established people on board (this movie) since it was, basically, after the Vic Morrow tragedy, his way of sneaking back into Hollywood by, in this reviewer's opinion, going in the back door... using a slow, atmospheric story with a handful of cameos that only rabid movie fans (and not even them) would recognize, and that's not including superstar musician David Bowie as a hit man and even Landis himself as one of four bumbling yet lethal Iranian killers trying to find the McGuiffin: diamonds stolen from the Shah of Iran that Michelle Pfeiffer's Diane has, and, once she meets poor Ed, inside the LAX parking structure, about to possibly catch a flight to Las Vegas for something workmate Dan Aykroyd advised, he gets catapulted... that's right... INTO THE NIGHT.

art evans, clu gulager, david bowie, don siegel, eighties, jeff goldblum, john landis, michelle pfeiffer, neo noir, rick baker

STAYING AWAKE FOR THE JOHN LANDIS NOIR INTO THE NIGHT

Clu Gulager's take on things Ed Okin, our hero/pawn in the John Landis Neo Noir INTO THE NIGHT, works as an Aeronautical Engineer, w...

RAMBLING PERSPECTIVE OF 'CAT PEOPLE' ORIGINAL & REMAKE

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxIvNfaj44UHQlcegjBHWdto9Yf3RLMTOy1LTEUFhebxaZv473_Jp36AHml1q_D6T8joJ8xHK9C9PYNGy3C6NLm9rqzzVMu90VMr8nt7mmCWDrwyofAMEMT5-3_95euwJmuvFv1VYnRHo/s1600/1+1.53.09+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxIvNfaj44UHQlcegjBHWdto9Yf3RLMTOy1LTEUFhebxaZv473_Jp36AHml1q_D6T8joJ8xHK9C9PYNGy3C6NLm9rqzzVMu90VMr8nt7mmCWDrwyofAMEMT5-3_95euwJmuvFv1VYnRHo/s1600/1+1.53.09+PM.jpg"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 1942 cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith • year: 1982 cast: Nastassja Kinski, John Heard, Malcolm McDowell</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The main difference between the original Film Noir CAT PEOPLE produced by b-movie king Val Lewton, and directed with artistic, mesmerizing prowess by Lewton's stock director Jacques Tourneur, and the 1982 remake directed by TAXI DRIVER scribe and HARDCORE director Paul Schrader, is that at one point, a distinguished gentleman, in the original, looks at a woman about to cause a subtle scene in front of our always out-of-place ingenue Simone Simon as Irena Dubrovna Reed... especially nervous around her fiance's fancy restaurant-dwelling cronies... as the man points out, casually: "She looks like a cat."

annette o'toole, david bowie, ed begley jr., film noir, franchise, jacques tourneur, kent smith, malcolm mcdowell, nastassja kinski, neo noir, paul schrader, sequel, simone simon, val lewton

RAMBLING PERSPECTIVE OF 'CAT PEOPLE' ORIGINAL & REMAKE

year: 1942 cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith • year: 1982 cast: Nastassja Kinski, John Heard, Malcolm McDowell The main difference between ...

DAVID BOWIE CO-STARS IN 'MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE'

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBZnSdX8LpGlHJ_Vzo2hLAnEqZvoiSAuGfVrNrxdmDXVGsXVqC5KanHQeymQ5qeTmorzboO_emWO6JJq7iqh-URBioV4QghphmV0nlP2uDvDg_8ZsT3VQEgtE4dhfDbXvA7_efxVA7d9s/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-01-18+at+10.05.03+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBZnSdX8LpGlHJ_Vzo2hLAnEqZvoiSAuGfVrNrxdmDXVGsXVqC5KanHQeymQ5qeTmorzboO_emWO6JJq7iqh-URBioV4QghphmV0nlP2uDvDg_8ZsT3VQEgtE4dhfDbXvA7_efxVA7d9s/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-01-18+at+10.05.03+PM.jpg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">year: 1983 starring: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryûichi Sakamoto</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's intriguing to imagine what, say, an eighty-year-old man stumbling across MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE on TCM would think of the new Steve "Cooler King" McQueen, here a confident, reluctant leader type in Maj. Jack "Strafer" Celliers, played by the always visibly offbeat and unusual "he's not just anyone" rock icon David Bowie... 
 
The New Wave pioneer can't completely hide his subliminally bizarre aura even in a Second World War setting, a sort of irremovable tattoo upon his banana-blonde countenance... but as a guy who had a lucrative singing day job, he's a pretty good actor, although much of the valid performance is silent, unemotional and disassociated, allowing the man the film's named after, Tom Conti as Col. John Lawrence, a visual cross between Al Pacino and Griffin Dunne and always a capable character-actor, who blends into the background even when in the foreground, carefully trying to keep a deranged yet subdued Japanese prison camp leader, following strict edicts seeming more Samurai than 20th Century, from taking his vile powers out on both the prisoners and guards until, if he had his way, there'd be no one left but himself in a week's time...

david bowie, eighties, jack thompson, prison, tom conti, tribute, world war II

DAVID BOWIE CO-STARS IN 'MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE'

year: 1983 starring: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryûichi Sakamoto It's intriguing to imagine what, say, an eighty-year-old man stumbling...

DAVID BOWIE DOESN'T SUCK IN TONY SCOTT'S 'THE HUNGER'

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlcFu56TX9Fn83Cy66xKHW9hMHFpiPiQbui-NjZ0bYj847aDi7N3je3510p5lfassDKVG0Lgg5r-zeAdk6TuUAw5GVmY1sKzDQJX2e3jQ9K84Da43JhiF148UHDNdKty83gLp3p_u9W4e/s1600/MV5BMTYyMTkwNzc1N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTg5NTUyNTM%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C1482%252C1000_AL_.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1387" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlcFu56TX9Fn83Cy66xKHW9hMHFpiPiQbui-NjZ0bYj847aDi7N3je3510p5lfassDKVG0Lgg5r-zeAdk6TuUAw5GVmY1sKzDQJX2e3jQ9K84Da43JhiF148UHDNdKty83gLp3p_u9W4e/s400/MV5BMTYyMTkwNzc1N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTg5NTUyNTM%2540._V1_SY1000_CR0%252C0%252C1482%252C1000_AL_.jpeg" width="400"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Bowie with Catherine Deneuve in THE HUNGER Year: 1983</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
With quick editing and plenty of steamy close-ups, Tony Scott's movies often felt like music videos – yet this, unlike several of his other (more commercial) projects, is a really good video. 
 
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
Centering on Catherine Deneuve’s Miriam Blaylock, a gorgeous vampire holed up in a dark mansion with her husband of two thousand years, John, played with a subtle intensity by musician David Bowie, one of the few actors that could act and, halfway through, providing a surprise attack that truly underlines the pinnacle of the film's suspense, and who our dark anti-heroine promised “eternal life" to, which turned out being a gift with a price: After enough time, her lover’s begin aging rapidly: in the course of twenty-four they’re coffin-bound, for keeps. Which is John's dilemna, who tries seeking help a scientist bent on curing the fatal disease where teenagers can die of old age...