The Fractured Mirror entry: Bottoms Up (1934)
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 09:19:54 AM
At some point I will write about a movie people have heard of for the book. I promise!
Bottoms Up (1934)
A trio of mugs on the make set out to elevate an extra to movie stardom in the 1934 musical Bottoms Up. The pre-code romantic comedy is most notable as an early vehicle for Spencer Tracy, who was only a few years away from winning back to back Academy Awards for 1938’s Captain Courageous and 1939’s Boys Town.
Tracy brings effortless charisma, humor and authenticity to the lead role of “Smoothie” King, a film flam man who meets struggling actress Wanda Gale (Pat Paterson) and resolves to make her a movie star. Smoothie is assisted in his unethical enterprises by wonderfully nicknamed fellow grifters “Spuds” Marco (Sid Silvers) and “Limey” Brooks (Herbert Mundlin).
Spuds’ con involves passing himself off as a gentleman jockey while Limey presents himself as Lord Brocklehurst, a British royal and Wanda’s fake aristocratic father. The duplicitous outsiders will do anything to catapult the beautiful actress to stardom, including light blackmail.
The sleazy star-makers convince a neurotic studio head that Hal Reed (John Boles), the star of his big new production, took liberties with an underaged girl but that if they cast Wanda in his movie they’ll look the other way.
The handsome matinee idol falls in love with a woman he thinks is the daughter of a Lord. Smoothie is sweet on her as well. The smartly cast Tracy, Silvers and Mandlin make for a fast and funny triple act. Like the Marx Brothers, they’re a propriety-puncturing whirlwind of energy and subversion. Unfortunately, the musical and romance elements of Bottoms Up are weaker than the comedy in a way that recalls the Marx Brothers’ lesser vehicles as well. Bottoms Up is a decidedly minor showcase for a major star that’s good for some surprisingly dark chuckles but not much more.
The Fractured Mirror entry: Young and Beautiful (1934)
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 08:57:43 AM
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I am excited to announce that the Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition of the Joy of Trash is officially out!
over 1 year ago
– Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 06:40:18 AM
Hey you beautiful people,
I know I usually rap at ya about weird old movies you've never heard of but today I am writing to you about something much different but equally awesome: a brand spanking new version of a book that is near and dear to my heart, and, like The Fractured Mirror, an ambitious literary spin-off of my website Nathan Rabin's Happy Place.
It's been a LONG time coming but I am pleased to report that I just put out an extended version of The Joy of Trash we're calling the Flaming Garbage Fire extended edition. It's got sixty pages of additional material on scoundrels like Bill Cosby (Fat Albert), Dustin Diamond (The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story), John Kricfalusi (Ren & Stimpy: "Adult Party Cartoon"), Joe Camel (A Camel Named Joe: An American Icon) and the James Belushi-led Blues Brothers, who figure prominently in an epic closing chapter that explores the blues, the prison-industrial complex, nostalgia and my complicated feelings about my home town of Chicago.
It also includes a new cover and a new illustration from my brilliant illustrator Felipe Sobreiro as well as brand new pieces on the notorious Easy Rider sequel Easy Rider: The Ride Back and the notorious Spike TV Kelsey Grammer vehicle Gary the Rat created specifically for the book.
I would love it if you would buy a copy over at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
To sweeten the deal I'm throwing in a free signed copy of Felipe Sobreiro and my 120 page "Weird Al" Yankovic-themed coloring book The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Cynical Movie Cash-In Extended Edition with each purchase.
Since the book is about terrible people and terrible entertainment only a masochist like me should have to experience I want to do something positive as well so I'm offering a Joy of Positivity set of signed (by Felipe and myself) and numbered (to 100) hardcover books, all of which will feature a hand-written recommendation of a piece of entertainment as good as the stuff in the book is not just bad but abhorrent. PLUS you get a free coloring book with each purchase. What a bargain!
They're going fast so get in on this excellent deal before it's all gone!
I'm officially launching the book today so I would love, love, love it if you would help me get out the word via Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Substack and every other form of human communication. I would love to feel a tidal wave of love and support on this very important day, when I introduce the second coming of what I feel is my best and most entertaining book I've ever written.
And I've written my share!
You're gonna love the book! It's like the original The Joy of Trash but longer and better and even more awesome!
The Fractured Mirror entry: Being Michael Madsen (2007)
over 1 year ago
– Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 05:33:21 AM
Being Michael Madsen (2007)
Predators become prey and prey transforms into predators in the supremely silly 2007 mockumentary Being Michael Madsen. The scrappy, low-budget independent comedy inhabits an alternate universe much like our own, except that Michael Madsen is so popular that he’s hounded relentlessly by the paparazzi and a fixture in the tabloids.
This bizarro world Michael Madsen decides to turn the tables on the professional vultures who make his life a living hell and keep him from scoring plum movie roles by making a muckraking movie of his own targeting Billy Dant (Jason Allan Smith). Dant is a disgraced journalist who traded in a promising, legitimate career for one that involves accusing Michael Madsen of murder with zero in the way of evidence.
A revenge-hungry and appropriately grizzled Madsen sends a skeleton crew of documentarians to terrorize the tabloid ghoul the same way he menaced him and, one would imagine, substantially more famous actors as well.
Madsen is a weirdly distant presence in a film that bears his name. He delivers a performance oddly devoid of self-deprecation because the film’s comic targets are sleazy, documentarians and equally unethical tabloid creeps rather than tough guy character actors. Being Michael Madsen’s take on bottom-feeding tabloids and mercenary non-fiction filmmakingis moderately clever and reasonably amusing but this nevertheless feels like a clever short expanded unnecessarily into a watchable but deeply forgettable feature.
The Fractured Mirror entry: X (2022)
over 1 year ago
– Sat, Mar 11, 2023 at 11:34:29 AM
X (2022)
Frightmaster Ti West fulfilled the abundant promise of his 2009 breakthrough film House of the Devil with the 2022 porn world horror hit X. It’s another masterful pastiche rooted in a deep love and understanding of horror history that transcends mere homage because West has a bold, distinctive vision beyond emulating the giants that came before him.
The grisly tale of a low-budget but creatively ambitious pornographic movie in 1979 Texas that runs into uniquely brutal production problems, X stars indie It Girl Mia Goth in a challenging dual role as the film’s equally unforgettable heroine and villain.
Goth plays Maxine, a pornographic actress with an ineffable X quality and excess of offbeat charisma and sexuality. She’s a fearless, uninhibited, coke-sniffing badass all too cognizant of her star quality and the effect she has on men.
The spooky eyed hellcat will be showcasing her talents in an interracial adult motion picture entitled The Farmer’s Daughters alongside smart-mouthed blonde bombshell Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), black stud Jackson (Kid Cudi) and eventually Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who begins the shoot working on the crew but develops a rapacious sexuality curiosity about performing on camera.
The film is being shot on the farm of eccentric old couple Wayne (Martin Henderson) and Pearl (Goth). The elderly eccentrics at first appear to be merely unwell and unnecessarily antagonistic but as the shoot goes on they prove that age is just a number when it comes to wreaking apocalyptic bloodshed with great fury and enjoyment.
As in House of the Devil, West takes his sweet time establishing an atmosphere of dread and lurking violence. X is rooted in the rich Southern soil of a colorful milieu realized with great affection and meticulous attention to detail.
The cast is universally fine but for sheer visceral impact no one can compete with Goth, who delivers a performance at once otherworldly and grubbily physical. West’s tribute to grimy grind house horror of the 1970s is one goddamn fucked up horror picture in the best sense.
