Chorus.Fm Weekly Movie Club • Page 3

If you want to get a head start: My pick is for the 1974 Monte Hellman film Cockfighter, based off of the novel by Charles Willeford. The film apparently does feature actual cockfighting, as a warning

 

I remember Rodgers talking about that on Actionboyz, excited to check it out.

I enjoyed Carol. I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said better than I could. I was a bit distracted during it unfortunately, I'll need to revisit it again

 

I actually haven't seen a Hellman yet, though I really need to see Two-Lane Blacktop.

 

Nice - never heard of that before, will try and get to that, this week.

Apparently it's still banned in the UK though!

 

I finished the book last week. It's a good one, not as good as the Hoke Moseley series, but entertaining enough. There's a particularly moving passage revolving around music that apparently got cut from the film.

Willeford is a strange guy. I've really grown to love his writing style, specifically how he builds to (anti) climaxes. I've only seen Two-Lane Blacktop, and that was years ago, but I look forward to seeing what Hellman does with this.

Miami Blues was a decent adaptation, I think Baldwin does a good job as the main villain. They were going to make a Hoke Moseley TV show starring Paul Giamatti but it got canned

 

I also have Cockfighter available now, in case anybody has any difficulty tracking it down. Please PM me, if you need a link to it.

 

I have only seen one of his films. Interesting pick.

 

There are two versions available on Amazon Prime. One has absolute shit quality but the other one is Freevee with ads. Pick your poison. It’s also on Pluto and Tubi, I believe

 

Cockfighter is tough. I really loved the performances, it looks great. I love the grime of it all. But the cockfighting, and there's a lot of it, is hard to watch. Kind of hard to look past all the animal torture in the movie.

it's especially hard when it's being glorified. It's not like Wake in Fright's real Kangaroo Hunt, which is shown to demonstrate how violent and reprehensible kangaroo hunting is. Even when Frank loses his fiancé due to his cockfighting, he seems happy to be free to focus on cockfighting and goes off to celebrate his medal.

 

I'm only about 20 mins into the movie but I can speak on the ending a little bit more in terms of the book. Can't defend the real use of animals being harmed/killed, but I can try to analyze what Willeford was going for, because I don't think he's "glorifying" the sport.

Frank has a few other completely self destructive sequences in the book in which he alienates loved ones, ruins opportunities and generally fucks everyone around him over in the pursuit of the cockfighter award. The ending of the book is similar (although I'll have to watch to see if it is exactly the same), but it isn't meant to glorify the sport. Frank sucks, and like other Willeford novels there is this anti-climax within the climax where he pulls the rug out from under you. Frank doesn't learn anything. He doesn't develop (apart from getting his voice back). In a lesser or more straightforward novel, he gives up cockfighting after Icky dies and his fiance returns to him, and he ignores the award presentation to go after her. I kinda like the downer ending. The entire novel is based around Frank taking various odd jobs/fucking over his brother in order to get enough money to buy the bird (that the owner doesn't really want to give up). It dies in the fight and Frank fucking throws it on the ground, steps on the body and tears its head off to hand over to his fiance. Not sure if that happens in the movie, but it really is a brutal, bitter ending to a character that you just spent the entire novel with.
I haven't landed on my coherent analysis of the overall story yet, I'm still thinking about it.

 

Very busy week for a variety of reasons, but I will try to watch it Sunday.

 

the ending is the same, but it didn’t read as a downer to me (for Frank).

 

Oh it's definitely not for him, he's happy as hell to have the weight of his fiance off of his shoulders. He also cut any ties he had with his family and he's looking forward to keep fighting. But as the audience, you feel a little horrified at his actions and his complete disregard for his personal life/his connections. It's presented as neutral, up to you to discern how you feel.

 

Watched this tonight, I didn't know anything about the director or writer prior to this, but I saw in the opening credits it was produced by Roger Corman, who was responsible for producing a lot of cult and exploitation films, including Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha.

You could imagine in another film that this penance of silence that Frank undertakes would be used as a way to Frank to reflect on his self destructive tendencies, and be something that he can learn and grow from. However, there's none of that here, Frank's silence appears to be the only difference between him when the film starts, he engages in the same behaviour, he's just quiet throughout it.

The film comes to it's conclusion and it's bleak ending, with Mary Elizabeth (I think that was her name...?) laying all of Frank's flaws, as succinct and direct as possible, tearing him apart, as he does the same to his cock's head. Voice returned, he heads back to pick up his prize, with absolutely no growth or development, leading us to wonder why we've spent all that time in his company.

 

Yes i loved how the the vow of silence had no moral significance to us none practitioners, it was a supersitious ritual to gain favour in his religion. The bizzare backward religion of Cockfighting that demands the disregard of all tradisional virtues as itself is a dispicable act that looks only to its own glorification.

"I wait, gentle men. Light passes this way but once, notwithstanding the hinders. And I say, celebrate a victory twice! Once before the magic event, and once afterwards. A ritual is what it is. Religious. Mystical in it's power to invoke the god of lighting victory. As the top glass fill, it overflows into the next, and on down into eternity. the mystical realm of the Great Cock. A monument."

Its confusing without this context, cockfighting its self and its world appears disgusting and to has little to no skill or merit other than knowing the grifts and getting lucky neither at which frank is particularly gifted at, and is confirmed with the annoucment that the lofty title of Cockfighter of the Year doesnt even need to win his fight. But everything Frank does he does for cockfighing and is rewarded for it.

 

Between this and Sleepaway Camp, James Earl Jones' dad had a fun career.

 

Not completely sure how I felt about this. There’s enough I appreciated about it for me to be curious about the director’s other work, but the whole dead cock thing is… a lot. I don’t necessarily regret watching it, though.

Frank sure was proud to stubbornly piss his life away.

Am I remembering right that they cut to a fairly prominent, albeit brief, shot of some dude eating chicken while watching the last fight?

 

Same feelings here. It was strangely watchable for atrocious the subject matter and actual violence was. Could've absolutely done without that and really can't think about it what I watched too much without getting upset, but the filmmaking was competent and interesting and it was cool to see Ed Begley Jr., HDS, and the aforementioned Robert Earl Jones.

 

This was on YouTube for free, albeit very low quality. It was fine, although I am surprised an American film that recent would show real violence. It is funny to see Begley there given his otherwise liberal West Coast ideology.

Tomorrow is @youll be fine

 

I probably wouldn’t have known that was Ed Begley Jr if I wasn’t constantly looking for him after seeing his name in the credits

 

As a representation of a subculture how do we think this film did?

 

I think I’m going to pivot in a slightly different direction and go with

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Dir. Edgar Wright
Streaming on Netflix

I haven’t seen this since theaters and I remember absolutely hating it. With the stacked cast and current ~~superhero~~ craze I wonder if it will be any better.

Wright is interesting to me because he has the cult following but almost none of his films ever do it for me. @michael_gatto

 

I worked at a video rental store for a while in 2012 where I mostly sat around and watched movies all day and I watched Scott Pilgrim almost every shift. Don’t think I’ve seen it since. I’m interested in revisiting it

 

I enjoyed the ones he did with Simon Pegg, hated Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim

 

Yeah I love the Cornetto trilogy, saw Scott Pilgrim in the cinema when it was released and thought it was appalling.

Maybe I’ll revisit this week, but maybe not…