Grindhouse day 1 - Mack Attack

Last night kicked off the first night of Quentin Tarantino's programming at the New Beverly theatre. Or as it is now known, The Los Angeles Grindhouse Festival 2007. This is one of those inevitable no-brainers that should have happened years ago. We have all these art house theatres as well as revival houses but so much of the programming is dedicated to high brow, subtitled fare. You know, "important" movies. Scratch that, "important CINEMA". Now I'm as excited about a new print of "Rashomon" as any other film geek but occasionally a hot greasy serving of tricked out pop culture is just what the doctor ordered.

I'm not sure how long they've been at it, but every month for the last 7 months or so, we here at M.O.G. have been attending the monthly Grindhouse event put on by the good folks at Hollywood Book and Poster, and my life will never be the same. We've seen demonic zombies, swinging cheerleaders, players, pimps, killers and lovers. In short, everything that M.O.G. is all about. When I heard that Quentin was going to be curating the programming for the New Bev's everyday schedule, I just about shat myself with glee. The feeling was akin to a cokehound falling out of an airplane and landing in a hottub at Carlos Escobar's compound.

Here's how the first night went down.

I got there about an hour late but due to the New Bev Grindhouse crew's usually relaxed pace and the requisite intros and warnings, I got ther just in time to watch the first couple trailers and get a nice seat. My friends had saved me a seat and promptly informed me that Quentin wasn't here but his assistant was and that she was sitting behind us. I was semi disappointed that he wasn't there but then again, that's not what this is about. It's almost as if this event is so natural and inevitable that there shouldn't be any hoopla about it. It would be like celebrating a deep breathe of air or a gulp of cool water.



So the first flick was "The Mack". I was excited to see it if only because it was referenced in "True Romance". Christian Slater busts into Gary Oldman the pimp's house and they're watching "The Mack" on TV. The film follows the life of a pimp recently released from jail. He quickly moves back up the ranks of pimpdom and wins accolades at the Player's Ball, etc.

While the kitsch value is pretty rich--especially for the kinds of people who think that the word "pimp" belongs on t-shirts, caps and bumper stickers--the film is more about the ongoing struggle of the black community in the wake of the post-MLK era. Martin may have had a dream but it's still a long time coming. This all comes to a head in the film when the lead pimp, Goldie talks to his brother Roger Mosley (AKA the black guy from Magnum P.I.) about the reasons why he pimps. Mosley's character is a sort of Black Panther type, fighting for slower agents of change in the community like education and community brotherhood. Goldie sees this as a waste of time, especially when there's so much money to be made by "turning out bitches". This discussion is left pretty open ended which, I guess, is more realistic and less preachy but it still left me a bit angry. In recent black history there's always been this sense of pride in "making your ends" no matter who gets hurt. You still hear these themes all over hip-hop tracks and flicks and it simply makes my blood boil. Not because of the violence or language (those things fascinate me to no end) but it's the sheer fatalism of feeling that things are so bad that the only way out of the ghetto is by rapping, sports, or in this case, pimping.

The reason why these types of movies and songs are so popular isn't too terribly difficult to ascertain, of course. Not too many people would buy a ticket to a movie called "The Black Guy That Went To College".

To sum it up, this film ranks pretty high for me in the list of criteria that I like to see in good pulp fiction. Pretty wild, unpredictable, sensational and thick with social commentary. My only beef is that it is too heavy on the commentary but hey, it's hard out here for a pimp.



The second movie, "The Chinese Mack", was honestly pretty skippable. It made a much better marquis sign than a viewing experience. The film pretty obviously was trying to bite off the success of "The Mack", much the same way that "Black Shampoo" did for "Shampoo". It was presented in "Kung Fu" color, though, so it wasn't all bad.

The plot stands out from most heroic kung fu films in that the hero began life as a wimpy kid and ended up soliciting prostitutes. The fight sequences were standard chop-socky at best, but made up for it with awkward camera work and the occasional freeze frame. The bad dubbing made for some laughs, especially lines like "Oh him, he's not my son. He's adopted. He's always doing crazy stuff like that."

The mostly boring flick pulled out of its tailspin of crappy action with a really bizarre towel versus nunchucku fight. That's right, our hero fights a guy with a towel. For like 8 minutes. It's awesome. Once that's done and our hero/anti-hero has vanquished his foe (Arthur Dent Style) he has to confront a boy (who we've learned earlier is the hero's brother, but doesn't know it). The fight culminates in each other kicking the other one in the balls. The anti-hero falls to the ground and dies while the boy pulls a metal cup out of his pants that he made himself.

Oh yeah, and there's a real pitbull fight, a cricket fight, a weird flashback of the hero as a baby being washed by his mother, and some boobies. That's about it.

All in all, a pretty kickass way to kick start the grindhouse. Let the good times splatter.