This week’s edition was not written by a Wolfman. He’ll deny it, but…

The Eight Legged Beast moves as one brain-twisted entity like a Group Mind flailing around in the dark until all is silent—terrified, befuddled, looped, and not alone in these sinister thoughts. Suddenly, a voice, a series of whispered voices, echo through the cavernous depths. A Wolfman jogs Loaded up ahead, a pied Piper has some worm-y legs, and a Ghost appears and disappears—run asunder by bad acid, or a sign near the cave entrance that reads: “Turn Back! Beware! This is the Beginning of the End!”

Meanwhile, I direct my eyes forward, and turn down the Brother from Another Planet. How can I feel stoned, high, drunk, and out in deep ecstatic space even though I’m clean?

Saw IT & Esther again, and a Sleeping Monkey with 8 legs & 4 heads eating 1 PHISH!

Ahhh…yes, Vegas. We were somewhere outside Lemonwheel when the chaos took hold. In the Court of the Crimson King as Big Red bends our collective noodles, I turn down:

Wolfman’s Brother> – 10/31/98 – and the LAST Halloween show until…

Yes, until now. I had no great need for the almighty Bug to Come. But here, HERE, I find it appropriate to nod at Halloween as we check out this week’s Hidden Flick, Eight Legged Freaks, and an homage to all that is unholy about old school horror cinema.

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Watching 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back for the gazillionth time made me think about the golden years of animation, past and present. Frank Oz, puppeteer and future director, painstakingly created the original Yoda and helped move him within each scene, in the back-breaking old school way, making the classic fifth Star Wars film a rewarding trip. Yes, Lucasfilm later computer-generated the Jedi Master in the prequels and Clone Wars animated series, but it was Oz who first breathed life into the ancient peaceful warrior.

That, of course, would change. Why put your hand up a puppet’s ass if you can spin the light fantastic on a computer, creating whole new worlds like a Geek Demigod? Why, indeed. A few years after Empire, 1988 to be exact, along came a Japanese anime film that would become a classic in its own right. Akira, the manga-inspired gem, is still considered to be one of the elite of its genre, and it helped move cinema from a world of four-eyed dipshit cartoons into grand mythical landscapes with rich, legendary stories.

This week, we deal with a Hidden Flick within a trio of films. Memories, a 1995 anime compilation featured the work of Katsuhiro Otomo, the co-writer and director of Akira. The series of three films contains an anime masterpiece, and two lesser works that don’t hit the mark. The pearl is the initial film, Magnetic Rose; whereas the other two, Stink Bomb and Cannon Fodder, are visually intriguing, but not as artistically compelling.

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One of my favorite bands was, is, and always shall be Pink Floyd if you haven’t noticed. And like the psychedelic pioneers of space rock, I never met an idea I couldn’t use more than once or thrice. So, here, this week, we present an amalgamation of several Hidden Flick thought patterns as we continue our thesis study on “What is Cinema?” Why are the alleged great films usually bores, while the weird flicks are the post-everything gems?

And yes…a mixture of patterns sleeping in the dirt outside the Hidden Theatre as we wait to get inside to start an evening of unexpected fun and heady pre-Halloween no-goodery. Press replay, repeat, and then play the new stuff, please (“thesis” is used in jest, brah).

Well…time for more popcorn, Red Vines, Raisinettes, and a refill of that 97-ounce soda. We take a break from our regular look at obscure films with another edition of Intermission, which means another look at a cinematic chestnut that may have been lauded or groundbreaking in the past, but has since been forgotten in history’s hourglass.

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In Quentin Tarantino’s World War II film Inglorious Basterds, Brad Pitt’s character wears the patch of a very special unit on his uniform. This unit is discussed and amplified in a much older film, and here is where we detail their history to a certain degree. It was the little American film that could. Placed at an inopportune time in the middle of the release schedule during the slow-rising anti-Vietnam war era of 1968, the slab of very old school celluloid still resonates with a…well, devil-may-care leer and assault.

Neither revolutionary, nor profoundly artistic, the film contains bits of hidden truths that are often forgotten, but not for very long. One of those is the little slice of wisdom stating that the universe is built upon a specific template, and progress is sometimes motivated by the actions of one’s polar opposite. And so we turn to this week’s Hidden Flick, a World War II film released in that anarchist flashpoint year, 1968, The Devil’s Brigade.

Based on a true story of the 1st Special Service Force, a unit essentially featuring the most misfit-laden, criminally-inclined, and dubious gang of rat bastards this side of either Attica, or San Quentin, depending upon which side of the switchblade one lives. At the beginning of the story, the outstanding American actor and iconic anti-hero William Holden is a Lt. Colonel assigned to an isolated outpost in the middle of Swinging Dick, Nowhere (Fort William Henry Harrison in Helena, Montana). The fort will serve as a makeshift training camp to a new squadron being prepared to fight in European campaigns in WWII. Yeah, good luck with that, Bill.

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This fall marks the 30th anniversary of The Wall, Pink Floyd’s landmark album of loss, depression, and, ultimately, total isolation from reality. The seminal work featured Roger Waters at his zenith as a conceptual artist and also, sadly and inevitably, brought an end to the band, lumbering on for just one more album, The Final Cut, with their leader.

Of course the Floyd continued on without Waters, but that is an old story for another time, and one that was rather appropriately amended by the Live 8 reunion in 2005 of the classic quartet one last time before Richard Wright’s passing on September 15, 2008.

Alas, this column is not completely about Waters, Gilmour, Mason, Wright, and Floyd, nor their fictional wall for that matter. This week’s Hidden Flick is really about a 2001 German film called Der Tunnel, and it is based on a true story about those that constructed a tunnel underneath the wall separating a divided Germany so citizens could escape from the Soviet regime governing the East. It is also about what it’s like to be an existentialist who hasn’t faced such horrors, and yet one still feels the deep pain within.

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Recently, along with 15 others, Sidney Poitier was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama as an “agent of change,” and so I went back to revisit his film canon and found an interesting surprise. Poitier’s great acting career reached its peak in the turbulent yet race-defining 1960s. However, he was at an artistic crossroads, a veritable career stalemate where his role as a strong African-American who defies societal norms while personifying the decent citizen led to creative atrophy.

How does one defy stereotypes, and lead a diverse career if one is trapped, forever pigeonholed as THAT straight cat who always makes the right move, always stands tall in the face of evil, and never drifts too far into anyone’s faulty plan? Poitier struggled with those issues throughout his career, but back in 1957 when this week’s Hidden Flick was filmed, he was just another bright star on the horizon, ready for his next big break.

What makes Edge of the City significant isn’t just the 30-year-old’s vigorously righteous performance, but that the film also features Ruby Dee, the dynamic actress/writer/activist, Jack Warden, who always appeared to be in every cleverly-written character role from the 60s to the 80s, and John Cassavetes who would go onto gritty acting and directorial triumphs later on in his career, while married to the brilliant actress, Gena Rowlands. In the end, however, it is Poitier’s soaring presence which towers over the film.

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Alejandro Jodorowsky is many strange things to many outraged people, so it makes sense that clarity of purpose doesn’t appear to rank high on his artistic agenda. And that’s the hook right there. With the advent of this third season, 3.0 if you like, we drift away from the essence of what is known, and move further towards a more obscure angle—if that is actually possible when one is trying to focus on a rational discussion of film.

Well, that was all hoity toity and the usual heaping of pretension mixed in with foggy dissonance, but what does it mean? Indeed. What does anything mean? As we head out on a third voyage into the Great Cinematic Unknown with more than a little bit of tongue in cheek, and a heady nod towards experimental versus populist films, the nail on the head in this discussion becomes obvious, especially in light of this week’s Hidden Flick.

Before tripping on to the path of Jodorowsky’s scandalous The Holy Mountain, let’s continue our brief look at the definition of our little idea of a Hidden Flick column. These remnants of celluloid which we study and admire aren’t so much “hidden flicks” as they are films about “hidden knowledge” masked in eternally weird riddles: what is the protagonist after? What is the director trying to say? Is this a truly unique film, and does it challenge the viewer, thereby forcing the issue that to be questioning obscure ideas means that one’s audience is far smaller, but more in tune with the creative process? Ahhh…we have the answer: the Spinal Tap factor. Our audience is more “selective,” which is always the initial step towards delusion and self-indulgence, but it’s also far more honest. Let us build our 3 foot high monuments to Stonehenge, shall we?

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[Originally Published: 06/02/2009] The Death of the American Dream has been laid out for quite some time. If anything, the definition has seemed to change from generation to generation and, ultimately, one is left to interpret the hallowed Dream as one see fits. As it should be, it is, I suppose.

However, some never really had that chance to pursue their ambitions, never really had an opportunity to find out what they could do if given the right passage to success. Yes, but many, if not all, see who they have become, and what they have done with their lives. It is those points on the road through existence that we see clearly demarcated in this week’s Hidden Flick, a tale of a destiny bound and buried, American Me.

Directed in his debut at the helm by Edward James Olmos, the film was inspired by a true story, but is essentially a heavily fictionalized characterization of life as a Mexican on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1950s-70s, detailing the racism of the dominating white populace, the early gang warfare in the city, and then, inevitably, life behind the walls of various California prisons where the Mexican Mafia solidified its formidable reputation.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick - American Me and be sure to check HT in two weeks for the first edition of Hidden Flick’s Season 3…

[Originally Published: March 10, 2009]

When I first saw Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, his epic out-of-nowhere British zombie/uber cannibalistic/virus outbreak/mutant apocalypse mind-blowingly violent death mental film, I immediately had the same reaction I have with any incredibly talented director. Give the bastard some serious coin to spin the celluloid fantastic into hyperspace. See what they can do. Give them enough rope to either jump across the whole psychedelic lake and swing back with their sanity intact and talents furthered, OR the rope tangles around their artistic neck, strangling themselves on their own self-indulgence.

Boyle reached his total mass creative potential in a completely unexpected way with the unpredictable critical and commercial success of Slumdog Millionaire. However, Boyle’s film before the East Indian tempest in a tea pot, is an intense and visually stunning piece of work that just seemed to come and go under the cultural radar in the 2007 theatrical night like so many other obscure gems. Indeed, this week’s Hidden Flick is Sunshine.

The science fiction film helmed by Boyle, and written by Alex Garland, tells the tale of a ship in 2057 sent from Earth to detonate a nuclear weapon “the size of Manhattan” within our dying Sol in a desperate attempt to reinvigorate and give new life to a dying star. The international cast is surrounded by ingenious CGI effect shots, and the usual Boyle setups which neither foreshadow, nor echo anything that has really come before in the film.

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Welcome to the final installment of the second season of Randy Ray’s stellar Hidden Flick column which clues you in on films that may have slipped past your radar. But don’t fret, season three kicks off on August 4 and we’ll feature the best of season two every other Tuesday until season three begins. Here’s a Special Edition of Hidden Flick to close the season properly…

It was an old amphitheatre that was going to be torn down and replaced with…well, the owner just couldn’t say. “I had a few offers to do something with the place, but I couldn’t part with her. She’s special,” said…well, the owner just prefers to remain anonymous, almost like the Stranger, aka the Cowboy Narrator, played by Sam Elliott, in the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski. “Sarsaparilla for all my friends,” as Elliott channels Barfly’s Mickey Rourke in another cinematic dimension.

He seemed to get misty eyed when he spoke of how long he had owned the tiny outdoor venue—it had been used for concerts by no name acts for years, with seats up front, and then a lawn which stretched out far and wide in the back, all leading up to a lot where patrons could park, walk through the entrance booth, and go find a seat, a seat on this night, not to catch a concert, or hear any music whatsoever from any band, but to see a series of films in what is now known as “my little Hidden Theatre at the end of the road,” according to the owner, a gracious chap on this refreshingly mild pre-summer eve. READ ON for more of this week’s Hidden Flick…