Ted Kotcheff
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Connections, in both directions
The deeper we get into the movie, however, the clearer it becomes that this is less an homage to films like Apocalypse Now (which is explicitly referenced) and a criticism of things like First Blood, than a reworking of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
The characters themselves discuss Hollywood’s take on Vietnam vets with Rambo in First Blood .
It's in conversation with the years of media that has painted the North Vietnamese in broadly evil strokes, even name-checking the Rambo franchise.
The touchstones range from Rambo to Apocalypse Now , with some obvious quotes, and some more veiled references.
When the finale explodes in a standoff, Bloods becomes like any other overkill, trigger-happy action film — or like the Rambo movies that our guys in Bloods mock early on .
Swiss Army Man (2016)
Directed by Daniel Kwan
influenced by Weekend at Bernie's (1989)
Characters Themes Plot
He’s still as immobile as Terry Kiser’s corpse in Weekend at Bernie’s, but unlike that character, Manny has a personality.
Sort of like “Weekend at Bernie’s,” if it were a surrealist indie film and Bernie engaged in absurdist existential conversation, this is the weirdest movie in Radcliffe’s career.
If any of the preceding paragraph sounds like an intriguing proposition (Cast Away meets Weekend at Bernie’s!)
??½ Written and directed by the team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, precociously branded as "Daniels" (not even "the Daniels," just "Daniels," as in "A Film by Daniels"), this emo "Robinson Crusoe"-meets-"Weekend at Bernie's" casts Paul Dano as Hank, a desperate millennial lost in the wilderness whose beachfront suicide is interrupted by the surf-tossed delivery of a flatulent corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) that Hank embraces as a best friend, sidekick and alter ego, as well as an "all-purpose tool man" (the decomposing and leaky body functions as a water fountain, a flame starter and even a Jet Ski).
Is Daniel Radcliffe’s decision to play the said flatulent dead body in Swiss Army Man, a black indie comedy certain to invoke mention of Weekend at Bernie’s, a Shia-LaBeouf-esque way of saying “look at me, I’m being Edgy and Different”?
Equal parts Castaway, The Trouble With Harry and Weekend at Bernie’s, the surprisingly sweet and celebratory Swiss Army Man marks the feature writing and directing debut of music video directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who bill themselves as “Daniels.”
Podcaster, professor and colleague Elric Kane has compared The Lighthouse to 1971’s Wake in Fright, and damned if he isn’t spot-on in that assessment — though I would add a little bit of 1994’s Cabin Boy to the mix as well.
Boiled down to its simplest elements, THE LIGHTHOUSE is a mash-up of the cold existentialism of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, the drunken savagery of Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 film WAKE IN FRIGHT, and a large scoop of Jungian archetypal imagery pertaining to recurring myths.
These films were legendary, from Rambo (1982) to Commando (1985) and Lethal Weapon (1987), Cobra (1986) and Action Jackson (1988), and, of course, Predator.
In its Rambo-alike moments, the first Predator converted echoes of Vietnam into cheesy thrills.
In fact, an extended cat and mouse pursuit in the Irish woods evokes, whether intentionally or not, a similar sequence in First Blood , the first Rambo movie (perhaps at least partly because of the similarity in Irish and Pacific Northwest climates).
Although parts of The Foreigner echo the likes of First Blood and Point Blank/ Payback , there’s more going on here than simple revenge.
And that's because each week the show -- that debuted on NBC back in 1983 following the success of the somewhat similarly themed first Rambo movie, "First Blood," and ran for 5 seasons -- featured its unorthodox but highly proficient quartet of special forces ops doing their thing in defeating one bad guy or another while perpetually trying to clear their names.
Football films used to do this (North Dallas Forty, Brian's Song), but now mostly stick closely to their inspirational clichés (Remember the Titans, The Blind Side).
That first movie was actually a pleasant surprise, a “First Blood”/”Death Wish”/blaxploitation homage combining hilariously over-the-top violent action sequences with political satire about immigration and Mexican-American border relations in which Trejo, in his first-ever starring role, was clearly having the time of his life.
It's clear Grant is out of his element and wishes to remain so, but his condescendence is not only noted, but slyly, and nonverbally, remarked upon by hotelier Charlie (John Meillon, "Crocodile Dundee"), anticipating what will happen down the tracks.
As a child I definitely preferred the New York material, since it moved faster and was instantly relatable (if only to other media representations of NYC), but in retrospect these are minor virtues compared to the melancholy beauty of the Australia portion, which as a bonus has obvious roots in the national cinema--with references to Walkabout, Wake in Fright, and other seminal works of Ozploitation--that offer something extra for the student of film. 2 That said, the rousing climax, a variation on the old airport confession of love, sends the picture--and us--out on a high note with an affirmation of the essential New York character (brotherly, romantic), as a crowded subway station pulls together to help Sue 3 confess her love for Mick.
Bacurau (2019)
Directed by Juliano Dornelles
influenced by Wake in Fright (1971), First Blood (1982)
Visuals Themes
The film feels very much a pastiche, with visual and tonal debts owed to John Carpenter, Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright, and in turn Alejandro Jodorowsky’s personal brand of psychadelic western.
Bacurau ’s slips into unexpected madness and violence reminded me not just of Carpenter, whose music the filmmakers sample in a key moment, but also of the early, tables-turning revenge thrillers of Wes Craven; of the first Rambo movie, First Blood ; and, in a long, punchy, midfilm dialogue scene that drastically shifts the perspective, of the work of the other Quentin who’s brought a movie to Cannes 2019.
After one brief, unremarkable exchange with Aurora in the forest, Philip spends most of his time in an enchanted sleep, with M levitating him around like a comical prop, not unlike the corpse in Weekend at Bernie’s.
Screenwriters David and Peter Griffiths ("Collateral Damage") and Art Monterastelli have created an original screenplay that in truth is a remake of "First Blood," the first of the "Rambo" series, with a little of Tommy Lee Jones's character from "The Fugitive" thrown in and some borrowing of "Apocalypse Now's" Colonel Kurtz for del Toro's motivation.
Many viewers will likely be reminded of "First Blood" (the initial installment of the "Rambo" series) and Richard Crenna's efforts to find and bring in his renegade but highly resourceful former soldier (Sly Stallone) who's suffering from post traumatic stress (and more recent mistreatment).
At its heart, it's a Rambo rehash, a " First Blood " remake minus America's post-Vietnam guilt-trip.
If you've seen both First Blood and The Fugitive, you've already watched The Hunted.
The film is a distant poor relation to "First Blood" and "The Fugitive," and follows the formula of such films in a disjointed and undeveloped way.
It was co-written by Stallone and a guy named Art Monterastelli, who also co-wrote William Friedkin's The Hunted (2003), another stripped-down, cut-to-the-chase action film obviously inspired by the film that introduced John Rambo, 1982's First Blood.
This is where you might get giddy, as you begin to suspect you’re watching a better version of First Blood with topflight acting: Martius’s eyes grow red and he joins his respected national enemy, Aufidius (Butler), in a move that strikes fear into the hearts of smug senators (chiefly a weaselly Nesbitt).
In this respect there are even traces of John Rambo from First Blood (Ted Kotcheff, 1982) within Fiennes’s Coriolanus.
To say he recalls Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo, from First Blood , is no insult; it’s important that some threat of violence, lingering from Will’s military past, hovers over his interactions with “polite” society.
Its thematic lineage is from Taxi Driver and Rolling Thunder and others, brought into the '80s to give lie to Reagan's optimism ("Have a Coke and a smile," advises the billboard outside the shattered building) until Rambo's climactic peroration introduces the hawkish switcheroo.
Bruce Dern did it in “Coming Home” and William Devane in “Rolling Thunder”.
It sounds like a variation on "First Blood," but it's actually a 1977 film written by "Taxi Driver" scribe Paul Schrader and starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones.
Before The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, and First Blood, there was 1977′s Rolling Thunder.
The Trost brothers skewer their hometown, pay homage to the movies they love (such as First Blood, Rocky, and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and even poke fun at their white, suburban, upper middle class socio-economic status.
Though the film wants desperately to be a smart, cynical sports drama along the lines of the scathing "North Dallas Forty" or the recent documentary "Go Tigers!" (as opposed to the more formulaic and sentimental but crowd-pleasing "Remember the Titans") it does some surprisingly dumb things that undermine its best intentions.
Based on a true-story book by H.G. Bissinger, this one is slightly more ambitious, intent on doing with high-school football what North Dallas Forty did at the pro level — that is, scrape beneath the surface glamour in search of some realistic grit.
It is much more grounded here to give the appearance of being realistic, like First Blood was compared to other Rambo adventures, but it still flirts with crossing that line.
One sequence involving Yi is a wonderful homage to First Blood.
That food-coma-populated valley of early December, which combines post-holiday letdown with pre-holiday anxiety, seems as good a time as any to release “Out of the Furnace,” a stridently downbeat Rust Belt drama that can’t decide if it wants to be the first half of “The Deer Hunter” or the last half of “First Blood.”