R.I.P., Daria Nicolodi

I'm sorry to report the passing of Daria Nicolodi, a true titan of Italian cinema and a true giallo Hall-of-Famer here at Junta Juleil. In her capacity as a performer, a writer, and a muse, she left her mark on horror cinema forever. R.I.P.

Only now does it occur to me... THE BODYGUARD (1992)

Only now does it occur to me... that Kevin Costner's character in THE BODYGUARD hates boats because he's experiencing psychic reverberations of the trials he will endure in the future of... WATERWORLD.







Speaking of "psychic reverberations of the future," he's talking to Whitney Houston's onscreen son there, played by DeVaughn Nixon. Throughout this film, he must live in fear of an unstoppable killer who wants to murder his mom. Not unlike his performance in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, when a practically unstoppable killer (Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor) wants to assassinate his dad (Joe Morton's Miles Dyson).

I must also give a shout-out to two major nods to arthouse cinema: first, during Whitney's "Queen of the Night," she is done up like Brigitte Helm in the notorious "Whore of Babylon" dance sequence from Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS:

as scenes from the film are projected behind her:

 Secondly, Costner takes Whitney on a date to see Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO,

which translates to, in English, "THE BODYGUARD." They review the film as follows:

I wish this would happen more often. What if, in Paul Haggis' CRASH, Thandie Newton and Terrence Howard had gone to the movies and seen David Cronenberg's CRASH? What if, in Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD, Viggo Mortensen had arranged a post-apocalyptic screening of Fellini's LA STRADA? Some good possibilities there. Anyway.

Only now does it occur to me... WATERWORLD (1995)

Only now does it occur to me... that the 1990s were all about taking existing stories and setting them on a boat. 

First, we got UNDER SIEGE. You cannot dispute that it's DIE HARD on a boat. That's the entire elevator pitch.

SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL? SPEED on a boat, obviously. Easy.

CAPTAIN RON?... is clearly WHAT ABOUT BOB on a boat. Think about it.

WHITE SQUALL? Eh, DEAD POETS SOCIETY on a boat.

DOWN PERISCOPE? Pretty much KELLY'S HEROES on a boat.

DEEP RISING? Definitely FROM DUSK TILL DAWN on a boat (or SCARECROWS works, too).

CRIMSON TIDE? Sorta FAIL SAFE/DR. STRANGELOVE on a boat. (Yeah, submarine, whatever.)

NAVY SEALS, with Charlie Sheen and Michael Biehn? TOP GUN on a boat. (With fewer volleyball and even more propaganda.)

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER? I'm gonna make the argument that it's your classic intelligence game/defector/TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY story, mainly so I can remind you that the rhyme which gives John le Carre's novel its title originally says "sailor" instead of "spy," so why don't you go think about that for a minute as you ponder all these 90s boats (and submarines, too, I guess).

CABIN BOY? This one's a little tougher. There's a little DON QUIXOTE, PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, and MONTY PYTHON in there. Nevertheless, you must admit that it takes place on a boat.

TITANIC? Could go a lot of ways here, from WUTHERING HEIGHTS to GONE WITH THE WIND to AIRPORT or whatever, but as the highest-grossing movie of the 1990s, there's definitely the sense that it helps define the 90s as a boat-related decade.

Which brings us to WATERWORLD. Which is... MAD MAX: THE ROAD WARRIOR on a boat!

It takes FISHTAR-sized balls to open your summer blockbuster with Kevin Costner drinking his own pee. This is literally the first thing we see, after a Waterworlded version of the Universal logo.

This, and the rest of WATERWORLD, is George Miller-infused, post-apocalyptic madness, chock full of oil and gasoline-seeking weirdos, Terry Gilliam/Karel Zeman flying machines, and costumes made out of trash and (pirate) bondage gear. (Big shoutout to costumer John Bloomfield, who also did CONAN THE BARBARIAN and THE MUMMY '99, among others.)

 

Despite the troubled production and its awful "KEVIN'S GATE" reputation, WATERWORLD, when you get down to it, is actually pretty enjoyable. It's certainly no worse than typical, semi-competent 90s popcorn fare like INDEPENDENCE DAY or TWISTER or SPEED. Speaking of SPEED: Dennis Hopper is in the house, and he's having a blast.

As "The Deacon," the one-eyed barbarian king of "The Smokers," his only character traits are that he's sadistic, insane, and loves smoking. Here he is, tossing handfuls of cigarettes at a parade like they're candy:

He says things like "I swear to Poseidon" and "Excuuuuuuse me!" and even tries to get little children hooked on tobacco with the promise of Sharpie Highlighters.

He gives it just the right amount of "crazy-eye to comedy" ratio, never going full-Busey (Gary Busey––along with Jack Nicholson, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Laurence Fishburne were also up for the role.)

There's a lot going on here, from a generic James Newton Howard Score to Costner having gills behind his ears and webbed feet, but they manage to make room for Kim Coates playing a weird Irishman rapist with costume elements made from the infamous, fish-choking six-pack rings.

So that's something. Costner even allows a female lead to share the screen with him on occasion, and it's Jeanne Tripplehorn, whose name often appears in the same sentence as the words "deserves better."

She endured literal brushes with death, jellyfish stings, and being stuck on a boat with Kevin Costner. Of the experience, she said “I was feeling a little like Patty Hearst. I was just completely brainwashed by my captors and I was just out there trying to get through it.” Holy shit, WATERWORLD! I guess it's all worth it cause she gets this nice n' corny SUPERMAN/"Can You Read My Mind?" sequence where Costner uses his webbed feet to swim her down to the bottom of the ocean to take a magical look at the ruined remnants of Indianapolis or wherever.

Anyway. MAD MAX on a boat!

The World to Come!

I'm proud to announce a new project on which I served in the minor but inspirational role as "kitsch consultant." It's called THE WORLD TO COME, and it's an epic, episodic post-apocalyptic musical podcast series which imagines a post-internet, post-literate society having returned completely to the oral traditions, and where age-old genre fandom has achieved the urgency of religion. Different factions include the Hepburners of Whiteway (old Hollywood), the Fansci Folk of Queensrealm (Sci-Fi and Fantasy), The Criterione Collective of Soderburg (art film), the Snookis of the Real Isle of Staten (reality TV), and Los Escandalistas of Boogietown (telenovelas), among others. Written by Erik Ransom, composed and orchestrated by Andy Peterson, and directed and showrun by Rachel Klein, it's been the COVID-19 project of dozens of New York theater professionals who refused to sit idly by and wait for their industry to recover, and you can learn more about their process through this interview with the writer.

There are four episodes already available for download (of what will be season one's twelve total), and I cannot recommend it enough: it's addictive, hilarious, and sophisticated, full of grand world-building and packed with easter eggs, and it's a must-listen for anyone who ever loved anything from STAR TREK to MY DINNER WITH ANDRE to ROCKY IV. You can listen or download for free, wherever podcasts are available, or by following this link.

Only now does it occur to me... Dick Maas' DOWN/THE SHAFT (2001)

Only now does it occur to me... that on this Halloween I ought to spare a few thoughts for Dick Maas' own "Hollywood" remake of his 1983 Dutch elevator-horror film, THE LIFT. Like the original, it's the classic tale of a machine with a mind of its own terrorizing the occupants of a high-rise. Probably the greatest mark it left on pop culture was to inspire the mediocre X-FILES episode, "Ghost in the Machine."

Known as both "DOWN" and "THE SHAFT," this American remake has a far larger budget and a truer commitment to gleeful misanthropy: the elevator's victims include children, the disabled, seeing-eye dogs, and pregnant women. He recreates several scenes from the original, shot-for-shot,

1983


2001



1983

2001

though this time he manages to fit in an extended sequence of schweet X-treme rollerblading


which ends with one of the rollerbladers sucked up in a parking garage by the killer elevator and launched from the observation deck onto the sidewalk below, so I have to tip my hat to that sort of shit. This one's ending is a little more low-rent DIE HARD than the original and involves a bazooka

and a makeout sesh' set to Aerosmith's "Love in an Elevator" so I guess that probably sets the scene for you.

Like the original, it's still pretty committed to the banality of elevator repair (James Marshall––TWIN PEAKS' James Hurley––plays the intrepid elevator engineer originally played by Huub Stapel).

Naomi Watts takes over Willeke van Ammelrooy's role of the elevator journalist/love interest (her last role before her breakthrough in MULHOLLAND DRIVE).

Edward Herrmann (OVERBOARD, THE LOST BOYS) plays the building manager, who for all intents and purposes is "The Mayor from JAWS" of this picture.


Ron Perlman pops up as a passionate elevator executive who doesn't like elevator journalists poking around his business, so he shouts things like "goddamit!" all the time.



Dan Hedaya sorta phones it in as a hardboiled elevator-hating cop, which reminds me that

Hedaya and Ron Perlman were really on their way to being a real Tracey/Hepburn in the late '90s, appearing together in three movies (this, ALIEN: RESURRECTION, Joe Dante's THE SECOND CIVIL WAR) within a four-year span. Why'd they have to go and break that streak?

Finally, we have Canadian Jack Nicholson and Junta Juleil Hall-O-Famer Michael Ironside

as "that German prick from elevator research" and he has this look on his face throughout like he's a little surprised to even be there

but he's still trying his best, even when explaining that an elevator he's possessed with military-grade microchip goop could somehow usher in a new Age of the Medici. It's not too big of a spoiler to say that he meets his demise via elevator after failing to kill James Hurley in hand-to-hand combat


when CGI elevator cables start whipping about like deranged snakes


and send him to the high-rise gallows. Alongside TOTAL RECALL's "See you at the party, Richter" moment, this marks at least the second time in film history that Ironside has been dispatched by an elevator.

Most of the dialogue is delivered by the cast in a stilted manner, as if English isn't their first language, even though it is in most cases. This lends it a kind of lesser-Bava or Fulci feel that almost evolves into a Lynchian one

given the cast's history––James Marshall (TWIN PEAKS, TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN), Naomi Watts (MULHOLLAND DRIVE, RABBITS, TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN), and Dan Hedaya (MULHOLLAND DRIVE). There's even a scene at a '50s diner,


though, sadly, it is not a Winkie's.

The final aspect I must mention in relation to THE SHAFT is the "9/11" one. This film debuted at Cannes in May 2001 and was released in the Netherlands on September 6, 2001. Its American release was cancelled (though it eventually made it to straight-to-video in 2003) because of the September 11th attacks.

Many films were delayed by 9/11, including Schwarzenegger's COLLATERAL DAMAGE, the Guy Pearce remake of THE TIME MACHINE, and the Gwyneth Paltrow romcom VIEW FROM THE TOP. These decisions were made for reasons ranging from, respectively, "a building in Los Angeles explodes," "New York is damaged by meteors," and "the majority of scenes involve flight attendants at work." THE SHAFT is a different animal entirely. It doesn't merely have scenes of carnage in a high-rise,

though that certainly would have been enough to delay it, given the climate. It doesn't merely have scenes of a U.S. President somberly addressing the nation about a terrorist attack in New York.


And it doesn't merely show the World Trade Center as a B-roll shot during that speech.

Nor does it merely feature jokes about how terrorism against skyscrapers sells newspapers,


depict squads of nervous NYPD swarming lower Manhattan, or highlight the danger that terrorists with hijacked airplanes could pose.

Nor does it simply point out the attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993...

...no, it actually name-drops Osama Bin Laden:

In retrospect, it's certainly spooky to watch this aspect play out––and if I know American cult film audiences, this will likely be the major reason the film will be remembered in the long run.