Tagarchief: Dungeon Classics

Dungeon Classics #41: L.A. Confidential

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

L.A. Confidential (1997, USA)

Director: Curtis Hanson
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Running Time: 138 mins.

Three L.A. cops in the 1950s – three different personalities – each dealing with corruption in their own way. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a celebrity cop, something like the influencer of his day, working closely with tabloid journalist Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) and frequently appearing on the TV cop show Badge of Honor. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is an explosive sledgehammer with a particular hatred for abusive men. He’s not afraid to bend the rules to punish the guilty. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is the son of a legendary cop who wants to advance his career strictly by the book, which is hard to do in a city with a massively corrupt police force. When organized crime boss Mickey Cohen goes to prison, he leaves a wide gap for new players to move in, and the three leads soon find themselves in the middle of the heat. L.A. Confidential is a true masterpiece: a fantastic recreation of 1950s Los Angeles and an exceptional character study. The three leads, young and fairly unknown at the time, are truly stellar in their roles. There’s also an excellent supporting cast, with Kim Basinger especially stealing the spotlight as high-class prostitute Lynn Bracken. A great movie from start to finish – on the QT and very hush-hush.

Dungeon Classics #40: Killing Zoe

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Killing Zoe (1993, USA, France)

Director: Roger Avary
Cast: Eric Stoltz, Julie Delpy, Jean-Hugues Anglade
Running Time: 96 mins.

Before Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary struck gold with Pulp Fiction in 1994, both had written and directed a feature. Tarantino made Reservoir Dogs in 1992. While searching for locations for that film, its producer Lawrence Bender found a great bank in downtown Los Angeles which, although not suitable for Reservoir Dogs, seemed perfect for a movie set in a bank. Bender called every screenwriter he knew, asking if they had a script set in a bank. Roger Avary lied and said he did, then furiously wrote the first draft in under two weeks. Although the film is supposed to be set in Paris, it was shot almost entirely in L.A., with only the opening and closing road sequences filmed in the actual city. The story follows a criminal named Zed (Eric Stoltz) – two links to Pulp Fiction right there – who joins his old friend Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and his gang to pull off a robbery during Bastille Day. Beforehand, he orders a prostitute named Zoe (Julie Delpy), and the two immediately click. The night before the robbery, the crew goes out on a binge fueled by booze and heroin. This stretch of the movie drags, but once the robbery begins, the film shifts into the right gear. The heist goes spectacularly wrong, leading to a series of twisted and disturbing turns. Avary, whose filmmaking career never really went very far, proves himself a quite capable director here. Is this on the level of Tarantino? No, it’s too flawed for that, but this is still a memorable, exploitation movie known for its nihilistic tone and merciless violence.

Dungeon Classics #39: True Romance

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

True Romance (1993, USA, France)

Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper
Running Time: 119 mins.

In the early nineties, Tarantino wrote a couple of screenplays, including True Romance and Reservoir Dogs. He chose Reservoir Dogs for his directorial debut and was willing to sell True Romance. In 1993, after his debut was released, he took a date to the perfect date movie: True Romance, the film he had written. And boy, did it turn out to be a good movie; great fucking movie. Just looking at the cast members rolling by in the opening credits is astonishing; seeing so many (future) stars in one ensemble cast is rare. Director Tony Scott couldn’t deal with the screenplay’s non-chronological structure, so he changed it to a linear one. But aside from that, it’s a real Tarantino movie: the sharp dialogue, the great characters, the humor, the sudden bursts of violence; it’s all there. And then there’s an amazing sequence, one of the best he ever wrote: the famous Sicilian scene with Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken. Oh man, that is legendary. Also memorable is the brutal confrontation between Alabama and the sadistic Virgil, played by James Gandolfini. The whole movie is basically a rollercoaster in which the two main characters – Clarence (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette) – fall in love, get married, kill Alabama’s pimp, take off with his coke, and head to Hollywood to sell it, stumbling into one crazy situation after another while always keeping the film’s romantic core intact. True Romance is Scott’s best film and by far the best Tarantino movie not directed by Tarantino. In other words: it’s a must-see.

Dungeon Classics #38: Foxy Brown

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Foxy Brown (1974, USA)

Director: Jack Hill
Cast: Pam Grier, Antonio Fargas, Peter Brown
Running Time: 92 mins.

After the success of Coffy (1973), one of the defining films of the Blaxploitation era, director Jack Hill reunited with Pam Grier for Foxy Brown – a spiritual sequel that cranks up the style, violence, and attitude even further. Grier stars as Foxy Brown, a bold and beautiful woman who takes justice into her own hands after her undercover-cop boyfriend is betrayed and murdered. The snitch? Her own brother Link (Antonio Fargas), a small-time hustler desperate to pay off his debts to a ruthless drug syndicate led by the cold-blooded Miss Katherine Wall. Determined to take down the criminals who destroyed her life, Foxy infiltrates their front – a high-end modeling agency that’s really a cover for prostitution and drug trafficking. Undercover as the seductive ‘Misty Cotton’, she soon finds herself captured, drugged, and brutalized on a remote farm. But Foxy is far from finished. Escaping captivity, she joins forces with a militant Black community group to unleash righteous, bloody revenge on her enemies. The acting in Foxy Brown may not always aim for subtlety, but that’s hardly the point. What it delivers in spades is raw, unfiltered exploitation energy: flashy ’70s fashion, a killer soul-funk soundtrack, outrageous violence, razor-sharp one-liners, and some jaw-dropping set pieces – including a wild brawl in a lesbian bar where Foxy famously warns, “I got a black belt in bar stools!” Like many films of its kind, Foxy Brown is packed with gritty, shocking, and often deeply problematic content — misogyny, racism, drug abuse, and sadistic violence – but it’s also a defiant celebration of Black power, female strength, and street-level justice. By the end, Foxy ensures the villains get exactly what they deserve – and in true exploitation fashion, revenge has never tasted sweeter.