Fela, WB Crime, Tonoharu, Abbey Road, Sh*t Robot

Saturday I spent a ridiculous amount of money on margaritias and overpriced appetizers at a pretty-good Mexican eatery near me. Seared ahi tostaditas were nice but should have been much better or in bigger portions for the price, but the guacamole was fresh and good and the fried calamari with honey and a chile vampire donkey blood salsa was extraordinary. Had a dvd fest with a friend afterwards, watching Act of Violence, which was in Vol. 4 of Warner Bros' Film Noir Classics series. Like about half the films in there, it's not really a noir, just a black-and-white crime film from the '40s. We chose it because of the back cover description of "gimp-legged war veteran" Robert Ryan, who limps his implacable way to the door of Van Heflin, his old CO whose deal with their Nazi POW camp commandant led to Ryan's injury and the deaths of the rest of the men trying to escape the camp. Heflin was trying to save their lives by informing, but that's not how Ryan or the courts would see it, so Heflin tries covering up his lie and keeping his genteel suburban life going. Janet Leigh is his wife and she's ridiculously dumb and hysterical, a fault of the script and direction rather than hers. There's a pretty good tension going for a while but the pace is just too slow to sustain it and soon enough we were MST3King funnier dialogue.

On the other hand, earlier in the week I did enjoy some other films from the set, The Big Steal and Illegal, both on the same twofer disc. The Big Steal is a Mexican romp with Robert Mitchum on the run from a corrupt Army CO, teaming up with the acidic but eventually charmed Jane Greer, his earlier costar in Out of the Past. Mitchum is a hoot, and probably pretty risque' for the time, as he openly looks Greer up and down and his whole demeanor makes clear he wants to bone her if they get a free moment. Greer is a bit too thin and hard-faced to be a sexy screen goddess, plus she has a hard, Alice Kramden voice, but that's part of her appeal to me. Ramon Navarro's white suit marks him from the start as a lothario of weak character. Some fairly exciting chases for the low-fi filmmaking of the time, with what I'm guessing is Palm Desert subbing for Mexico. It's a fun one.

Then I went into the Edward G. Robinson legal thriller Illegal with low expectations, but really liked it. Robinson was getting older, in between his gangster and wise old man roles, and grey-listed due to suspicions of Communism (he wasn't) so he wasn't getting a lot of prime roles, but he makes the most of this one. He's a district attorney who quits after his conviction leads to an innocent man's death. He goes on a long bender, then climbs back as a defense attorney of dubious and flashy practices, such as punching out a witness exiting the stand to disprove the man's claim that an average man couldn't knock him out (Robinson had a roll of nickels hidden in his fist). He lets his former assistant and secret love Nina Foch marry a bright young DA because he thinks he's too old for her, and both men separately come under the spell of a big crime boss, Albert Dekker, due to their legal skills. Robinson refuses to be in Dekker's pocket but does turn a blind eye when his defense efforts aid the boss, while Foch's husband directly informs Dekker of the DA office's plans. Foch discovers his treachery and ends up shooting him in self-defense, and Robinson defends her and stands up to Dekker in the bargain. It's a brisk and surprising film with a great Robinson performance, dynamic, funny and at times melancholy. Also look for the debut of Jayne Mansfield as the crime boss' new moll and pianist; she sings a song and has a pivotal scene on the witness stand.

We also tried watching Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, which I'd seen and dug about 10 years ago, but it was the wrong vibe for it this night. It's pretty slow. I did love the hotel scene, though.

I discovered I have the Sundance Channel, or maybe just for this weekend, who knows, so I watched an Iconoclasts with Samuel L. Jackson and Bill Russell that was pretty good if a bit too easygoing and lightweight. I also saw an episode of Live from Abbey Road, featuring performances and interview segments with Kasabian, Josh Groban and The Good, the Bad & the Queen. Kasabian are a decent if unexceptional British rock band. I have their first CD, where they're more dance-oriented. The lead singer has an almost perfect look--handsome unshaven face, Beatley hair, striped shirt--but he's getting a little fat for it, and I was curious why the guitartist/songwriter sang one of the three songs when clearly his voice isn't that good. It's that Oasis thing all over again. There were a number of string players and oddly enough, they were all really pretty women. Josh Groban is someone whose music just isn't for me at all, but he comes off well enough in the interview bits. Who knew he was so influenced by Peter Gabriel? The Good, the Bad & the Queen quite rightly finish the program as they're the most musically interesting, with the African/West London potpourri they brew up. They decorate the Abbey Road studio with squares of hanging red fabric and bare bulbs for atmosphere, singer Damon Albarn's red-lensed shades probably a deliberate choice, and they all had nice black or pinstripe suits. I already liked their music but this performance should net them some more fans.

The presence in the band of Tony Allen, first known for his work in Fela Kuti's Africa 70, made me seek out some Fela music, finally, and I found the albums Open and Close, Shakara, He Miss Road, and Expensive Shit (the title comes from an incident where Nigerian police try to plant weed on Fela, who swallows it and eventually has an um, expensive shit) for really cheap, as each album is only two or three long tracks. His songs are long jams with some similarities to James Brown in the horns and chickenscratch guitar. I kind of knew what to expect of the music and yet had never heard it before. It's really good, though, almost trance-inducing in its funky repetition. I read some on Fela and discovered his middle name was Anikulapo, or He Who Carries Death in His Pouch. I have to use that somewhere, as well as the character in one of his songs, Suffer-Head.

Also downloaded Shit Robot's first two EPs, which are pretty good DFA releases. Good club stuff. Also got Robert Forster's The Evangelist, which is his first work after the death of friend and Go-Between partner Grant MacClennan. I don't really know their work, so this was sort of an odd introduction, but what I've heard I'm liking a lot.