UPGRADE

Upgrade is one of those movies that’s totally fine but you’d think it was my favorite movie based on how I talk about it and defend it all the time. I know that doesn’t make complete sense but that’s the only way I can describe it. This is the true definition of a comfort film. There’s nothing original about the story but the execution is just right. I never get tired of watching it. Imagine the basic plot of Robocop with a few tweaks, more “bisexual lighting” and a fraction of the budget.

In the film, Logan Marshall Green plays "Grey Trace" - a recently widowed and disabled auto-mechanic that agrees to be the guinea pig for a controversial procedure, “STEM”, that will allow him to walk again. As the movie unfolds we learn that Trace’s paralyzation, STEM and the death of his wife are all connected.


The Robocop comparisons are super obvious but Upgrade director Leigh Whannell made a point to mention the similarities himself...

Robocop / Upgrade

With Upgrade, there's certainly a nostalgia there associated with '80s sci-fi films that I grew up with, like Robocop - Leigh Whannell, Vulture

Robocop / Upgrade

Besides the basic premise of a man turned in to a half human/half robotic killing machine, there are some very specific moments/beats between the two films that go beyond basic nostalgic influence.

Robocop / Upgrade

Some of the key similar moments between Robocop and Upgrade are even shot the same…

Robocop / Upgrade

Upgrade was also understandably compared to Venom as both movies were released the same year, each focusing on characters losing control of their bodies to some sort of outside/alien force (it should also be mentioned that Logan Marshall Green and Tom Hardy kind of look alike).

Upgrade / Venom

The movies that inspired me are the movies that I always loved. Films like the original Terminator, which is one of my favorite films. RoboCop, The Thing - Leigh Whannell, thenerdstemplar.com

Terminator / Upgrade

The Thing / Upgrade

And I know almost every movie can be connected to Stanley Kubrick in some way, but as Upgrade unfolds, "Stem" starts to act just like Hal from 2001...

2001... / Upgrade

The subject matter of Upgrade was certainly prescient given the rise of artificial intelligence everywhere (it seems like so much of what we read and deal with online and in academia has become a hybrid of the human element mixed with AI). All the elements for a great essay on the parallels between Upgrade and modern AI are there. I’m more interested in this film on an entertainment level. It’s just a fun action sci-fi story with a great droany score. 
It has to be noted that the music for Upgrade is great and works as a standalone entity. Jed Palmer’s score would mix in perfectly between early 90s Autechre and modern-day Brian Eno.


My only complaint is that there wasn’t a part two. I know it can get tiring having to deal with non-stop sequels and “cinematic universes”, but in the case of Upgrade it makes sense. Not to spoil the film too much but the final moments of Upgrade end on a sort of cliffhanger. Sure not everything needs a sequel and you could use your imagination to think up your own Upgrade cinematic universe, but I wanted to see it for real.
*SPOILER* - the movie ends with STEM taking over Trace’s body and turning him in to the villain. At the same time - the police officer that’s tasked with trying to stop Trace/STEM is left paralyzed/immobile and in the perfect position to have a similar STEM-like procedure done to her in order to track down the new rogue STEM/Trace).
While Upgrade didn’t break any box office numbers, it still made a $14 million dollar profit off of a $3 million dollar budget and gained a small but dedicated cult fanbase. On one hand, I know Blumhouse has bigger priorities but I can’t imagine it would have been that much of a gamble to make a sequel.


Perhaps Upgrade should have been a direct-to-video release from the start. This way we would have definitely got a sequel like all the Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White DTV films that maintain a dedicated fanbase.

This is hardly a masterpiece but it remains one of my most revisited films of the last decade. 

DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE

My relationship with Dragged Across Concrete doesn’t fall under the category of like or dislike. For me it's an interesting mess with good and bad qualities. This is one of those movies where I allowed the opinions of others to really cloud my own personal judgement before I actually saw it. The first time I saw this I expected to see a movie about two white nationalist police officers sharing racist jokes for two hours but that wasn’t the case. Outside of a few specific moments, this movie wasn’t the major racist cop slop that some folks tried to make it out to be. ...It was only minor-level racist cop slop.

This is a gritty crime drama centered around two shady cops. While it's nowhere near as good, Dragged Across Concrete falls under the same category as something like The French Connection. The difference between a movie like this and something like The French Connection is that Dragged Across Concrete really emphasizes the idea of bystanders filming police (voyeurism of police is a huge part of this movie). I appreciate a good gritty cop drama with the protagonists in positions where they’re supposed to be the good guys when in fact they’re the bad guys. Folks love using descriptors like “complex” and “complicated” to describe shitty characters now more than ever but I’m not doing that. Some characters are just bad. Police dramas like Narc, Copland, Prince Of The City and more fall perfectly in to this category I'm talking about. Dragged Across Concrete may not be as good as those other films I’ve named but it still deserves to be mentioned in the same conversation.

And for those of you questioning my inclusion of Copland in to this category - just imagine the number of times Sylvester Stallone’s Freddy Heflin ignored blatant low/mid level corruption or police brutality. Again - I think Copland is very good but you’re being naive if you think Stallone’s character is this pure-hearted police officer that’s better than his peers.

I think some viewers still haven’t grasped that just because someone is the main character in a film that it doesn’t mean we have to root for them. There are backstories behind both cops in Dragged Across Concrete that might make someone feel sympathy for them. I don't. And that's ok. I still find the movie to be somewhat interesting.


Anyway… some of the qualities about Dragged Across Concrete that most folks called “bad” are what I liked about it. The film was criticized for it's long runtime, the deadpan delivery, the chemistry between the actors and the long stretches of time where nothing really happens. The movie was also heavily criticized for its own brand of social commentary and overall worldview that might be considered right wing or even alt-right. But we'll get in to that shortly.

I completely understand why a boring film would be an issue for some but I like boring movies as long as there’s an interesting payoff at some point. Director S. Craig Zahler is known for his extreme violence and explosive finales. So for all the “boring” stakeout scenes of Mel Gibson & Vince Vaughn just sitting in a car, I knew there would be some kind of explosive finale.
There’s a sort of Americanized Bresson-ian quality about Zahler’s last two films that I enjoy (stunted emotions, dry deliveries, human reactions that don’t match the situations around them, etc). 

I also like actors stepping out of their comfort zone. Much like Dragged Across Concrete’s predecessor, this is Vince Vaughn doing something slightly different. He’s played dislikable characters and straight up villains in the past, but it was always Vince Vaughn being some iteration of himself. That’s not meant to be an insult as plenty of actors have made great careers out of playing slight variations of the same person. But films like Brawl In Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete show that Vaughn has some range outside of snarky wise-ass.

I haven’t been able to enjoy anything Mel Gibson has done in a long time for personal reasons but this is an exception. Possibly the only exception. I don’t expect anyone to share my personal views but there are just some factual things we all know about Mel Gibson that I don’t like and I just don’t want to engage with his work anymore. And to be honest, has he done anything good or interesting in the last 20+ years outside of Dragged Across Concrete?
As long as I don’t try to rally the troops to get people to agree with me or use what little online platforms I have to slander him, I can quietly just not watch anything Mel Gibson is in without it being an issue. I also don’t retroactively dislike anything he’s done in the past that I enjoyed. I still love Mad Max, Lethal Weapon and more. I just don’t like the guy or the majority of his work today. Outside of what I’m writing right now, I dislike him quietly. More folks should try that.


The pairing of two specific actors like Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn in a movie like Dragged Across Concrete during the Trump-era is certainly a choice. I want to preface this by saying that anyone can cast whoever they want in their movie. Gibson and Vaughn work well together. But somebody somewhere behind the making of this movie had to be conscious of the type of pre-judgement this movie was going to receive by pairing up someone like Gibson with an open Trump supporter like Vaughn in a movie surrounded with and clouded by Maga-ism. I don’t think it’s all the movie’s fault. Filmmakers can’t always control their fanbase. I'm sure Martin Scorsese didn't envision frat boys hanging up posters of Travis Bickle on their wall. I doubt Stanley Kubrick thought people would think of Alex as "cool". But when S. Craig Zahler is buddied up with and co-owns publications like Rebeller, its not out of line to question if his movies do have some kind of a right wing agenda. To be clear - that doesn’t mean Zahler’s art should be suppressed or stopped. He just shouldn’t act so disingenuously confused when he’s associated with “right wing” art and politics. 

Most internet searches on Zahler, his films or Rebeller bring up articles like these first:

As for Mel Gibson - I don’t think anyone completely knows all of his personal political beliefs (despite who he aligns himself with these days), but we do know some of his views on a few specific groups of people that place him outside of any liberal/left/“woke” category which kind of automatically gets you labeled “right wing”. 

 

This image is formatted like a meme (I found it on the internet) but if you haven't seen Brawl On Cell Block 99, I assure you this is direct dialogue lifted from the movie (it's from a different scene than the one from the image above). When I see stuff like this it makes me wonder who actually finds this funny or witty. Not so much because it's low-hanging fruit racism either. It's just not funny from a comedic standpoint.

S. Craig Zahler takes this conveniently neutral position on issues like race, politics and social issues. He’s too smart to be this naive. Like I eluded to earlier, I think it’s disingenuous. He certainly doesn’t owe anyone an explanation on his personal views even if they don’t align with mine or yours. But when all of his movies have the same potentially controversial or problematic themes about race and social issues, it shouldn’t be considered out of line when he’s asked certain questions about not only his films but his personal views. I guess it depends on who is doing the interview or who is doing the critique on his work. It is my opinion that anyone with extreme views on either end of the spectrum shouldn’t be taken too seriously and need to stay away from critiquing art.
On one hand, I can see how an uninformed Joe Rogan listener with limited political knowledge that blindly loves Donald Trump and the occasional racist joke thinks that Zahler makes movies for him or her. But I can also see how an emotionally unstable modern-day left-leaning person that makes everything about personal identity politics would allow themselves to get worked up over certain aspects within Brawl In Cell Block 99 or Dragged Across Concrete.

Personally, I think Zahler probably has more right-leaning views in his personal life. But as an artist I really don’t think that he makes movies with hardcore maga dorks or sensitive theater kids in mind.

And let me be clear, I’ve never aligned myself with anything politically “right”, but modern-day liberals and left-leaning folks can sometimes be pretty racist and bigoted in their own unique way but it never gets called out the same way racism on the right does. But that’s another conversation for another time.
Modern-day liberal/left-leaning/diehard democrats are so far gone these days that I, a Black person, was called “right wing” for being critical of One Battle After Another on a podcast because I called out the problematic handling of race and Black women specifically.

Anyway...


S. Craig Zahler was already criticized for his presumed social, racial and political views prior to Dragged Across Concrete. Bone Tomahawk and Brawl In Cell Block 99 don’t exactly have scenes or scenarios that cast people of color in the best light (he’s not obligated to make people of color out to look good either). One could say the same thing about the white characters in his films but it is clear in his filmmaking that we’re sort of supposed to be on their side or at least have some of sympathy for them even with all their colorful views on Latinos and Black people.

I think the reason why Zahler gets criticized more than Tarantino for his handling of race is because he’s more blunt and realistically cynical. Tarantino is far more goofy with his n-word bullshit. He also masks it by showing off his knowledge of Blaxploitation films and uses his friendships with Rza and Samuel L. Jackson to shield himself from any genuine criticism. It just feels more real when the characters in Zahler’s movies make an off color remark about Mexicans or Black people.
I truly believe that if Mel Gibson hadn’t been cast in this and two very specific lines of dialogue concerning Black people and Mexicans were removed, Dragged Across Concrete would have been treated a little differently. On the surface it is a pretty tame story. Two police officers are suspended for six weeks without pay after being caught on film using excessive force towards a  (Latino) drug dealer. The problem is they’re both in need of immediate money for personal reasons and can’t go six weeks without their paychecks. After being tipped off about a planned bank heist, our suspended cops go rogue in an attempt to intercept the money. Naturally things go wrong and everyone has to try and clean up the mess left by the botched robbery.

While Gibson and Vaughn are certainly the main characters in Dragged Across Concrete, it’s the film’s supporting Black characters that end up being the most fascinating. Part of me thinks Zahler did this on purpose as a way to silence and/or challenge his critics that label him as a racist or a bigot. I kind of wish he didn’t do this because it doesn’t feel totally genuine. Addressing critics in such a direct way feels cheap. And just because you make a Black character the “winner” in the end doesn’t make you not racist. You really can’t win. The final scene feels like Zahler looking directly in to the camera at left-leaning critics and going “See? The Black guy lives in the end. What now???”


This is an interesting film that’s been tainted by the maga dorks and the liberal theater kids I mentioned earlier. But if you have any type of nuance or appreciation for imperfect cinema with a few good qualities, this can bring about some interesting dialogue.

 

THE SCHOOL OF TARKOVSKY: KONSTANTIN LAPUSHANKSY’S APOCALYPSE QUARTET

Stalker / A Visitor To A Museum

Instead of doing a semi-vague post on Tarkovsky’s influence on a director’s entire body of work, I decided to focus specifically on Starker and Konstantin Lopushansky’s post-apocalyptic quadrilogy.

Lopushansky was a production designer on Stalker early in his career and I genuinely think it left a lasting impression on him and his work. 

Many critics ask Lars von Trier, Alexander Sokurov, me about his influence. It is inevitable, as he is the greatest representative of auteur cinema, his quintessence of auteur cinema ideology has been absorbed by many, including me. But if we speak about style, some critics who do not like auteur cinema attempt to pick things apart; they say that in my films the water is flowing just like in his films. I respond that water flows in millions of other films. This argument is very weak.

And so on. In fact his influence is spiritual, it is the understanding of art. I was lucky to make a first draft of his lecture. He lectured film direction, later he took me as an apprentice for Stalker, we had an opportunity to socialize and one day he asked me to systemize his lectures - Konstantin Lopushansky, indie-cinema.com

There’s nothing I hate more than someone trying to tell an artist bout their own work but there’s something a little disingenuous about this quote. He’s not wrong in that there are a million films with overhead shots of water. But in the case of Tarkovsky and Lopushansky, it’s not just two directors shooting overhead shots of water. It’s two overhead shots of water with the same color palette, panning over to the protagonist’s hand in said water with the a similar score/“soundscape” accompanying each scene. And, to reiterate, Lopushansky was a production designer for Tarkovsky. Is it out of line to assume an impactful film like Stalker would leave a lasting impression on a young production designer that would go on to make their own films eventually?

Stalker / Russian Symphony

Konstantin Lopushansky’s semi-evasive response to Tarkovsky’s visual influence could also simply be a director sick of being compared to the same person for 4-1/2 decades.

Stalker / A Visitor To A Museum

I still think when you take all these factors in to consideration perhaps you’ll see that the comparisons in this post are more than just basic similarities or coincidences.

Stalker / A Visitor To A Museum

Stalker / A Visitor To A Museum

Stalker / Russian Symphony

Stalker / The Ugly Swans

Stalker / The Ugly Swans

Stalker / Dead Man's Letters

Stalker / A Visitor To A Museum

Stalker / Dead Man's Letters

Stalker / Dead Man's Letters

Stalker / The Ugly Swans

Stalker / A Visitor To A Museum

Stalker / The Ugly Swans

DREAM STORY

I’ve been in a real Eyes Wide Shut phase these last couple of weeks. A lot of deep-dive overly analytical videos on the film have been recommended to me on Instagram recently and I have to admit that some of them make some interesting points. 

 

The film also trended on Twitter the other day and it’s being pushed on Tubi (where I ended up watching it). Much like when C-19 shut the world down in March of 2020 and everyone was rushing to post their thoughts/reviews/feelings on Safe, Outbreak, Contagion and other virus-related movies, I think a lot of the recent Epstein and Diddy news has people trying to connect all of that to Eyes Wide Shut and anything EWS-related.

I guess this blog post means I’m participating…


Outside of hardcore Eyes Wide Shut Fans, it seems like folks don’t realize that there are three other film adaptations of the original source material: Traumnovelle. Two films before EWS (Traumnovelle and Il cavaliere, la morte e il diavolod) and one recent adaptation from 2024 (Dream Story). I don’t even think a lot of hardcore Kubrick fans acknowledge this. I didn't even know the most recent adaptation existed until recently. It isn't good but it's also fascinating to me.

You would think someone like me with a blog like PINNLAND would jump at the opportunity to make comparisons and sidebysides, but it’s kind of pointless. Someone also did the work for me (the 1983 Italian version is left out but you get the idea).

  

There is certainly a nice-sized Venn diagram crossover of Eyes Wide Shut cultists and diehard Kubrick fans, but there are separate groups that don’t always intermingle. Believe it or not - there are online communities of folks that are obsessed with Eyes Wide Shut that don’t necessarily care about all the Easter eggs in The Shining or the historical details of Barry Lyndon.

Personally, I find the diehard Stanley Kubrick fans that are obsessed with combing every detail of every one of his films to be the most interesting people. Sometimes they make outrageous claims and their theories are incredibly forced, but I still find them to be fascinating and sometimes incredibly knowledgeable.
The EWS folks have a lot in common with hardcore Boards Of Canada fans. I fall in to the unique Venn Diagram of people that love BoC’s music, Kubrick’s films and Eyes Wide Shut as a standalone entity outside of Kubrick's filmography. About three months ago I joined the Boards Of Canada Reddit group and immediately made the correlation between those people and EWS people.

For those that aren’t familiar with Board of Canada - they’re an electronic music duo from Scotland that relies heavily on Easter eggs, half-truths, occult imagery and anonymity. One could make a fairly easy argument that these elements describe both Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut.

Occult man-made circles, pentagrams, hexagrams, stars and other images are often associated with BoC’s music and Eyes Wide Shut.


Obsessive fandom can sometimes be incredibly informative even if they're base is rooted in batshit crazy theories. I do think it’s important to be overly familiar with Stanley Kubrick’s filmography and style of filmmaking when dissecting Eyes Wide Shut. He’s famous for his attempts at accuracy, OCD-like work-rate and avoiding continuity errors. This makes his work more intriguing in my older age because for someone so supposedly obsessed with “perfection”, there are a lot of possible plot holes and intentional continuity errors in some of his films. I like to think that Kubrick has been messing with his audience on purpose much like how most of the characters surrounding Dr. Harford in the story of Traumnovelle/Eyes Wide Shut have been messing with him (and how Boards of Canada loves to mess with their fans).


The first two adaptions of Traumnovelle are lesser known because they're basiclly B-movies. And on a personal note - they just aren’t very good (the 1983 Italian iteration is quite goofy). The most recent adaptation isn’t good either but it’s kind of fascinating for a variety of reasons.

On one hand, Dream Story is trying to stay true to the source material but with a modern twist. The basic premise is still there. A doctor stumbles upon multiple levels/worlds of sexual perversions after his ego is bruised from learning that his wife has sexual desires for another man (an underground organization of powerful elites may or may not be behind a chunk of the doctor’s discoveries). It’s best to not judge this movie from the trailer. It looks like an SNL skit parodying Eyes Wide Shut. On some level Dream Story does try to take from Kubrick's adaptation but there are some differences.
This time around director Florian Frerichs throws in more surreality, elaborate dream sequences and elements of S&M that aren’t in the other movie adaptions. Eyes Wide Shut certainly plays around with reality and throws in a dream sequences/fantasy, but it’s not the same. Dreams Story has total breaks in reality way more frequently. But because Eyes Wide Shut is also a modern retelling of Traumnovelle starring two major movie stars directed by one of the most legendary filmmakers - Dream Story will always be in the shadow of Kubrick.

Eyes Wide Shut aside, Dream Story does itself no favors. The acting is flat, the chemistry between the actors is almost non existent and Florian Frerichs clearly takes from Eyes Wide Shut as if we don't see it. Sometimes word for word! This is fascinating to me. Has there ever been a cinematic remake/adaptation/reinterpretation that tries to stay true to the original literary source material but also lifts/borrows/steals/copies from one of a previous cinematic iteration? Maybe John Carpenter's The Thing? 


Dream Story is really only made for people that are Traumnovelle/Eyes Wide Shut completists or folks that stay up late and watch random stuff on tubi when they can't sleep. I guess I’m somewhere in between.

BLACK AT YALE

Last year I was recommended this film by my good friend Chris on an episode of The Pink Smoke podcast and I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it before. This is truly a unique documentary that was ahead of it’s time. What makes Black at Yale so great is that it isn’t celebratory. Had this documentary about Black students at Yale university in the early 1970s been made by most filmmakers, it would have more than likely been a film celebrating the small demographic of Black students admitted to the college. It would have been seen a win. Instead, this documentary is a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of being “the first” or one of the earliest Black people to do something. This movie opened up a potential lane for more films to explore the negative side of being an early Black person to do something, but very few people went down that path. Instead - folks gravitated towards the stereotypical Christian-minded NAACP way of thinking where every early achievement by Black person is seen as nothing but a positive, and if you’re critical in any way you’re part of the problem. Sadly, this way of thinking continues to have a grip on Black folks now more than ever. If you don’t blindly celebrate every “win” achieved by a Black person then you’re a self-hating coon. And is it me - or does the “coon” insult no longer have the sting it once had? Nowadays, “coon” means everything and nothing at the same time. You vote Democrat? You’re a coon. You identify as a Black conservative? You’re a coon. You’re Black with a white spouse? You’re a coon? See what I mean? Anything can make you a coon at this point.

Anyway…

Getting in to Yale in the early 70s as a Black student is truly a major accomplishment. But once you get past that, you realize that you’re very isolated with little to no support or community. That kind of stuff matters. Especially back then. This is what the documentary hammers home. The film focuses on a few specific Black Yale students and their experiences on campus. From the jump you can see the mild depression in the students as they talk about their somewhat disappointing time on campus. Naturally they experience things like racism but that’s that not even the worst part. It’s racism and discrimination combined with being alone. In the south, if you experienced racism and bigotry as a Black person you still had a community of your own to fall Back on. In New Haven Connecticut, there were only so many Black people there at the time. And the Black locals with no affiliation to Yale would sometimes delineate from the few Black Yale students out of misplaced spite. So they’re facing forms of opposition from all sides.
This is incredibly unique to me because there has always been this slightly inaccurate portrayal of this “all for one” mentality when it comes to the Black struggle when in reality there were many internal opposing civil wars going on between Black folks during and after the civil rights movement. 

The problem is, the cautionary or overly critical Black folks that want to assess a situation before going all in are usually portrayed as "the problem" and are grouped in with the true snakes and sellouts within the Black community which is just unfair. 

Black at Yale / Chameleon Street

What’s most fascinating about this movie is that one of the subjects of this documentary isn’t actually enrolled in the college as a student which is a whole separate unique story in itself. I’m surprised Black At Yale isn’t paired with Wendell B Harris’ Chameleon Street more often. Not only is Chameleon Street based on a true story, but one of the chapters in the film involves the main character pretending to be a student at Yale. The fact that this has happened twice in life is kind of amazing to me.


Black at Yale speaks to my type of critical thinking. There are plenty of like-minded Black folks out there from all generations that would connect with this underseen gem of a film which is now on YouTube for free…

SUGAR HILL

I rewatched Sugar Hill in full recently after almost 30 years and it might be one of the most miscategorized movies ever. By the mid/late 90s, any movie that was part of the Black-American film boom at the time got grouped in to that “urban”/“hood” genre. What started out as essentially “post-Boyz in tha Hood cinema” (menace II society, south central, New Jersey drive, strapped, juice, above the rim, etc) eventually branched out to stuff like Deep Cover, King Of New York, New Jack City, Drop Squad, Dead Presidents and Sugar Hill. That’s a pretty lazy and borderline racist grouping of movies. Deep Cover was a noir crime drama. Dead Presidents was a post-Vietnam crime story. Sugar Hill was about organized crime. Drop Squad had nothing to do with traditional criminality at all (it was actually a response to all of the movies out at the time that sort of romanticized that stuff). If a movie had a predominantly Black cast and an ounce of “grittiness” it got called “hood” or “urban”.

It also didn’t help that a lot of these films shared the same actors, writers, producers and directors. Tupac starred in Juice and Above The Rim. Samuel L Jackson appeared in Juice, Fresh and Menace II Society. Laurence Fishburne starred in Boyz In Tha Hood and Deep Cover. Donald Faison co-starred in both New Jersey Drive and Sugar Hill. Bokeem Woodbine starred in Strapped and Dead Presidents. Khandi Alexander played the stereotypical drug addicted hood mom in Menace II Society and Sugar Hill. And a lot of the background/supporting cast from Boyz In Tha Hood showed up in South Central, Poetic Justice and Menace II Society. Sugar Hill was written by Barry Michael Cooper who also wrote New Jack City and Above The Rim. These three movies don’t have a whole lot in common but they were all birthed from the same person.

New Jack City / Sugar Hill

New Jack City / Sugar Hill

Menace II Society / Sugar Hill

These predominately Black films from the 90s also featured a rapper-turned actor in a prominent role and had high profile hip-hop soundtracks with a lot of the same artists providing the songs. 

In 1996 the Wayans brothers released Don’t Be A Menace In South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood which kind of killed the unofficial “urban movie” genre. But the damage was done. To this day folks will still miscategorize stuff like Deep Cover and New Jack City with Menace II Society and South Central. 

On one hand it’s quite bigoted to group all these movies together, but it’s also easy to see how, at a quick glance, one could group a lot of these movies together on face value.

I say all this to say that Sugar Hill should really be grouped in with other modern smaller scale mob/organized crime movies. It’s certainly not on the level of Goodfellas, Casino or the first two Godfather movies but it is definitely a great second-tier crime movie. Instead of Juice or Menace II Society, Sugar Hill deserves the same notoriety as Donnie Brasco, The Funeral or A Bronx Tale. Sugar Hill and Carlito’s Way are cinematic first cousins. Both New York City-based movies involve a protagonist villain trying to leave their criminal past behind for a woman. Unfortunately there’s always been this inability to connect predominantly Black films to predominantly white films the same way people connect and correlate same-race films…

In Sugar Hill, Roemello (Wesley Snipes) and his brother Ray (Michael Wright) are high-level New York City drug dealers. Roemello grows tired of the criminal life and plans to leave it all behind with his girlfriend Melissa in the midst of a gang war started by Ray. 

The story eventually turns in to a tug of war between Melissa and Ray. One side wants to pull him away from his dangerous lifestyle while the other side wants to keep him from leaving. 

Unlike some of the aforementioned movies, Sugar Hill is actually visually stunning. That’s not to say that films like Juice or Deep Cover don’t have stunning shots. But for the most part, the movies associated with the “urban” genre aren’t really recognized for their striking visuals. Sugar Hill is different. I don’t know how intentional this was but the wardrobe colors combined with the dark skin of the actors make for a nice contrast. It kind of planted the visual seeds for later films like Belly. Outside of just the visual similarities, the relationship between the brothers in Sugar Hill parallels the relationship between Nas and DMX in Belly right down to the level-headed partner wanting to leave behind their life of crime while the emotional unpredictable partner wants to stay a criminal. 

Sugar Hill is more of a slow burn than a typical shoot 'em up gangster flick. The explosive violent moments are few and far between. What we get instead are scenes of Snipes questioning his existence as a crime boss with a looming noir-ish jazz heavy score. This is mob/mafia/organized crime story that has more in common with other existential crime films like Sonatine and Hana-bi than it does King of New York. 

This is overdue for a proper reassessment.

SIDEWALK STORIES

I suppose the most alarming takeaway from Charles Lane’s Sidewalk Stories is that even though it was a remake of an almost 70 year old film at the time (Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid), the basic premise still applied to late 1980’s New York City. Lane never shied away from his giant homage to Chaplin but the bigger emphasis was on poverty and how bad it was even in the modern era. The cast of Sidewalk Stories is mostly Black so you could delve deeper in to race but a lot of the supporting and background characters are mostly white. Charles Lane has absolutely explored issues concerning race in his other works but I honestly don’t think this was his goal here. I think he was trying to make a general observation about poverty in the modern era and how it effects everyone.

There really isn’t much left to say about this movie after 35+ years. All the interesting and insightful stuff has been said. Outside of the race of the main characters there really isn’t anything different between Sidewalk Stories and The Kid. It’s essentially shot for shot. I don’t have anything new and/or profound to add.

What hasn’t been touched on a whole lot are the film’s influences outside of The Kid and the later films it would go on to influence. I find all that stuff interesting. Sidewalk Stories is a visual film and it hasn't really been looked at through that lens.

It [SIDEWALK STORIES] definitely came from THE KID - Charles Lane, hiddenfilms.com

The Kid / Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid / Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

The Kid /
Sidewalk Stories 

A common theme of silent cinema was poverty. Even if you aren’t a silent movie aficionado, close your eyes right now and think about the basic elements of a standard 1920s silent movie. Scraps of bread, dirty faces, holes in shoes, winos, etc.

Sidewalk Stories is really one giant homage to the silent genre.

homelessness was the thing that made me make the film - Charles Lane, moveablefest.com

Menilmontant / Sidewalk Stories 

Speedy / Sidewalk Stories

The Gold Rush / Sidewalk Stories 

The Gold Rush / Sidewalk Stories 

It should also be noted that Sidewalk Stories was a sequel to a lesser seen short film that Lane made in film school which was also an homage to the silent genre and laid the groundwork for his debut feature…

The Gold Rush / A Place In Time

The Gold Rush / A Place In Time

Sidewalk Stories was sort of a difficult film to track down for years but one huge momentary positive about the popularity of The Artist (2011) is that the director Michel Hazanavicius supposedly credited Lane’s Sidewalk Stories as a major influence. This brought some attention to the underseen film. I say supposedly because while Indiewire, Film Comment, TIFF, The Atlantic and more all say this - I haven’t actually found a direct quote from Hazanavicius himself. Film critic Ashley Clarke did note that Sidewalk Stories had a series of screenings in France in 2002 which is where Hazanavicius may have seen it.

Sidewalk Stories /

The Artists

Sidewalk Stories /

The Artists

Lane would eventually acknowledge The Artist and it's similarities to his movie...

Now that Sidewalk Stories is finally on a proper blu-ray you should check it out if you haven’t…