From youtube user jkb81, comes this delightful video, completely emancipated from reality: Enjoy as your authors are busy » Read more
Alternate reality trailer – Death Wish 3
Posted: 26th January 2011 by Jean-Phillippe Ennui in Uncategorized1
The Cuban – Death Wish III
Posted: 13th December 2010 by Jean-Phillippe Ennui in Death Wish 3, The CubanTags: cocaine, crowbars, falling, kersey space, rooftops, war, wildey, windshields
“The Cuban” – also known simply as “Cuba,” is one of Death Wish’ most menacing creeps. We’ve seen him once before his death scene – axe-murdering a rival gang member in an atrocious act of brutalité obscène, following up on a commandment of Fraker: “Hurt him. Kill him.” On the eve of his death, a vengeance rite for the Giggler takes place in their hide-out. Fraker provides The Cuban with yet two more commandments in their “Ganga Den:” “Cuba’s gonna get high, high, high!” and “I want you flat on your ass!” As implausible as it seems that The Cuban could fulfill this contradictory set of requests, we soon see they are both true: Fraker conjures not paradox but destiny. And then? Fraker adds spiritedly, apropos of Kersey, “Cuba’s gonna kill tonight!” – more of his impossible demands, saluted by his cheering devotees. No matter, dulce bellum inexpertis – “war is sweet to those who’ve never tasted it.” » Read more
Freddie Flakes — Death Wish V — monologium
Posted: 3rd December 2010 by Jules Bentley in Death Wish 5, Freddie Flakes
My colleague and renowned toiletologist M Durakov wrote an influential paper on a concept he termed корыто-брюки, translating roughly to “pants-tubber.” A pants-tubber is a task that cannot be lightly engaged, an undertaking requiring preparation. In the originating phrase, the preparation is to remove one’s pants entirely and drape them on the edge of the tub, anticipating an unusually demanding bowel movement. It was immediately clear that Death Wish V’s cross-dressing assassin Freddie Flakes, like The Giggler of Death Wish III, was a true “pants-tubber” of a creep. This was a deep creep, one for whose analysis no mere lowering of the metaphorical trousers would suffice. Doing Freddie justice would demand an almost trance-like depth of concentration, a bringing-to-bear of all my considerable powers of apperception. Freddie is a full-blast subtextual firehose of Freudian angst directed at the would-be explainer’s upturned face– a welter of images and symbols overflowing the mouth, eyes, ears, and threatening to invade the sinuses, to drown the assaying essayist simply seeking shallow sips. I slowed my video software 12X– every FRAME was exploding with meaning! I was awash in foot-pound pressurized symbolism, gagging on it! For this job, I would have to learn to unhinge my jaw. For this job, I would have to take off my pants. Analyzing this creep and his meanings would be a humdinger, a slobberknocker, indeed a pants-tubber– an essay during whose » Read more
Tulio — Death Wish III
Posted: 28th November 2010 by Jean-Phillippe Ennui in Death Wish 3, TulioTags: anytime, late capitalism, tabletopping, television theft, vanity
Tulio, as he is known from the credits- his name is never spoken in the film- is Death Wish III’s most fabulous creep. Like une panthère de Nijinsky, he prances his way through the film, decked in skin-tight Basquiat-inspired cut off tanks, Oslo-appropriate Ugg boots and various chains, jewelry and kerchiefs for décor. Despite his delectation in table-topping, the confiscation of television, and his deafening in-your-face demands and speeches, Tulio is actually one of Death Wish’ more gentle creeps – we know he has a future in dancing or gymnastics, or both – and his physique superbe is mere decoration in this Olympian romp of savagery, communion and deceit. He never quite puts it to use except to crawl in and out of windows, to table-top, and to yell at old people. He has two requests of the world: not to be ignored and to go where he pleases – at “any time.” He requests much of us, but he excels at securing that which pleases him. The table-topping scene with Rodriguez and his pre-expired wife, Maria, was a major point of contention with the censors of mid-eighties America. The production team Golan/Globus and director Winner fought viciously over the inclusion of this scene, which garnered the film an “X” rating at the time, but on continuous appeal the film won an “R”, securing it’s proper place at the box-office. According to Tipper Gore’s memoirs, the MPAA agreed to give the film an “R” if Tulio was included – explicitly – in both the “Maria rape” and the » Read more
As discussed elsewhere, one of the challenges of “Death Wish V: Face of Death” is determining how the series’ protagonist fits into the actual story. This is a challenge for the main character as well as the viewer: an aged Kersey must figure out where he is, geographically and metaphysically. Ostensibly he’s back in New York City, the site of the first film, but a questionable stilettos-and-miniskirts fashion milieu isn’t the only thing here savoring strongly of L.A.. The city streets that are Kersey’s traditional hunting ground frequently give way to a series of awkwardly Californian countryside environments. Where the fuck is Kersey? Displacement in that sense– being physically dislocated– is disorienting enough, but what’s worse is throughout the film creeps are murdered… not by Kersey… but by other creeps. This portends a truly sinister victory for creepdom: via pre-emptively killing themselves they may render Kersey redundant, a warrantless wanderer perversely denied purpose. Reggie, aka Reg, is a perfect example of the creep-on-creep violence that threatens vigilantism. What is the life of a black mobster like? Reggie’s gruesome demise at the hands of his fellow creeps suggests it’s not as glamorous as many rappers have fantasized. The boiler-suit-bedecked Reg is repeatedly insulted in transparently racial terms before being fatally brutalized by creeps above him in the underworld pecking order. In spite of being granted a catchphrase, “I ain’t » Read more
Toilet Smasher – Death Wish III
Posted: 16th November 2010 by Jean-Phillippe Ennui in Death Wish 3, Toilet SmasherTags: conciousness, repentance, toilet plunger, toiletology, traps
“I tore it out” was a member of Dial-A-Creep: the singular member of the Toilet Smashing and Tearing Comité – we know this since he does not bear the runic emblem of Fraker’s gang on his face, but something else altogether. He’d dispatched an octogenarian female with a Crane commercial model “Hymont Relaxed Height” and was in fact serving a breezy, week-end sentence. We are all grateful that Kersey made the prison toilet the last one he would ever smash. The toilet smasher does not simply reject “toilets,” but “toilet space” in the broader sense; that is the space where humans not only defecate but also groom and clean themselves and prepare their face for the world. The destruction of the lonely prison toilet is but one piece of a larger puzzle – is it the utter rejection of grooming, bathing and defecating, or is it that he may not accept toilet activities transformed as a public activity – prison bound, as it is here? Many absurd scholars have debated his “bluebird tattoo” – is it a butterfly? This recalls the famous 1973 prison break feature Papillion, but nothing in that film could prepare us for the fate awaiting our toilet smasher. The tattoo represented, as in the other film, his desire for broad latitude in action – but imprinted on his face. A landscape of libertarian fantasy where toilet smashing – and toilet killing – could continue with abandon. A world where one could say: “I tore it out” – his only line – and no one would bat an eye- nor » Read more