Hard Candy, Hardcore, and a few more movies

Hard Candy (2005)
Streaming free at Tubi

In a long sequence that starts this film, a 32-year-old man is trying to seduce a 14-year-old girl. The twist is that she's not the one in peril; he is — her plan is to castrate him, or maybe worse.

It's always enjoyable to see the victim turn the tables, so Hard Candy is easy to recommend, but with some caveats. The script gives the girl a very grownup way with words, opinions, brains, and retorts, and the dialogue for both of them is a little overwritten. Another problem is that when things are supposed to be happening fast, the film plays with the camera's speed, an effect that's always more annoying than convincing.

The entire story is absurdly unlikely, but that's true of almost any thriller, and this one's pretty good. Then-Ellen Page and still-Patrick Wilson star.

"This seriously has to be, like, one of the easiest operations — wow! I wonder why they teach Girl Scouts things like camping and selling cookies. This is what's really useful. I don't know how they'd design a merit badge for it, though."

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Hard Contract (1969)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

James Coburn plays a hired killer who only has sex with prostitutes, and never kisses them. He's sent to Europe for a kill, and meets a wild divorcee or Nazi operative or something, played by Lee Remick. She welcomes him to Spain by becoming his hooker, though she says she's never done this before.

The two of them have conversations very unlike anything real humans would say, kiss though it's against Coburn's rules, and inexplicably fall in love.

Probably other stuff happens, but every aspect of the movie is a bore, and I turned it off.

Verdict: NO. 

♦ ♦ ♦  

Hard Core (1969)
Streaming free at UbuWeb

NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#321  [archive]
AUG. 13, 2024

Let's look at the desert, for 27 minutes.

The camera revolves slowly, showing the dry, cracked, barren earth and some mountains in the distance. A microphone captures the perpetual wind, but the mic is un-shielded, so the wind sounds more like a jet engine idling.

At about 19 minutes, there's briefly the image of two men in cowboy hats.

Then the camera revolves slowly, showing a different, slightly sagebrushed area of the desert. The wind continues.

After 26 minutes, something unexpected and unexplained happens.

Story, music, and direction by Walter De Maria.

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Hardcore (1978)
Streaming free at Tubi

Kristin is a high school kid from a small midwestern town and a very Christian family. She happily goes to a church-sponsored youth camp in California, where the kids take a field trip to Knott's Berry Farm, but while they're there, she disappears.

A trash movie would've shown what happens from Kristin's perspective, and it would be tawdry and sad and icky, but writer-director Paul Schrader instead digs through multiple layers of tawdry, sad, and icky, by telling the story through her father's eyes.

He's Jake Van Dorn (George C Scott), a very conservative man who runs a furniture factory and heads an almost painfully Christian household. When his daughter has been missing for a month, Van Dorn's brother-in-law and best friend tries to console him by explaining, "Sometimes it's hard for us to understand the Lord's ways. He's testing you. You have to have faith."

Van Dorn has plenty of faith, but not quite enough to wait any longer, so he hires a sleazy private eye (Peter Boyle), who says, "When I find her, you may not even want her back." Eventually the private dick treats Van Dorn to a show at a porn theater, to let him see what his daughter's been doing — the 'hardcore' of the title.

After that, Van Dorn decides to look for Kristin himself, so Mr Conservative, who thinks sex is overrated, goes exploring the American gutter of pornography and prostitution and depravity.

Never saw this when it first came out. Young and innocent, I wasn't ready. But I remember the tagline from the ads: "Oh my God, that's my daughter!"

No longer young and innocent, my eyebrow raised itself at a few moments here. I don't doubt snuff films exist, but I'm super-skeptical that they were ever a commercial product. And even at the height of the porn era, would a producer recommend kiddie porn as an easy way to break into the industry?

Then again, Schrader is much more an expert on ickiness than I'll ever be. Like most of his work, Hardcore is jarring and uncomfortable, intelligent, relentless, and the stuff of nightmares. It's a Technicolor snapshot of America's ugly backside, bent over for careful examination, and it's grand.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Hard Core Logo (1996)
Streaming free at YouTube

Legendary rock star Bucky Haight has been shot by a crazed fan, and had a leg amputated, or maybe both legs. Haight's friends reunite their punk band Hard Core Logo for a fundraiser. Everyone in the band hates each other, but the reunion gig goes well, and they decide to tour again.

This is a faux documentary, directed by Bruce McDonald (Roadkill, Highway 61), who plays himself as the documentary filmmaker. It's not a comedy, though, or if it is the jokes eluded me.

When '70s punk was happening, I was still trying to be normal, but anyone who was part of that scene will love Hard Core Logo. The music is pretty good, the attitude is punk and feels real, and it's full of aging rockers who argue endlessly but believably, because they know and hate each other.

Watching the film let me know and hate them too, and I love that.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

A Hard Day's Night (1964)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Somehow I'd never seen A Hard Day's Night, wherein the Beatles moved from pop music to the movies.

Designed to sell the band and burnish their image, it's wildly successful — everyone's game for some hijinks, interspersed with the Beatles' early and excellent music.

Sinatra was a movie star, and Elvis was a movie star, but I don't think there'd been a movie like this before, making an entire band into movie stars. Directed by Richard Lester, it also seems to have set the precedent for what rock'n'roll would look like in film and on video, ever since.

The film gets this fat old man's recommendation. Reminds me of The Monkees, the TV ripoff of the Beatles. A Hard Day's Night looks and sounds exactly like a movie-length episode of that show, but with George, Paul, John, and Ringo instead of Davy, Mickey, Mike, and Peter.

And I love The Monkees, but the switch is very much an improvement.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

• 10 ways A Hard Day's Night changed the world 

• How Jean-Claude Van Damme showed me great American food

8/13/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Hard Hunted (1992)
The Hard Road (1973)
Hard Target (1993)
The Harder They Fall (1956)
Harriet (2019)  

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

— — —

Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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