Hate, and a few more movies

Hate (1995; France)
Streaming free at YouTube

Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) are good buddies and angry young punks roaming the streets of Paris. They have a reason for their anger — during the previous night's protests against police brutality, a friend of theirs was beaten by cops, and might die.

By cosmic coinkydink, Vinz has in his possession a policeman's gun, and if his friend dies from the beating, he plans to use that gun for vengeance against the first cop he sees.

#324  [archive]
AUG. 20, 2024

Hate is a foreign film, but no American will feel adrift. The policemen could be from Rampart, the housing projects are as hopeless, the injustices as blatant and as ignored, and other than speaking French with subtitles at their belly buttons, these young men could be found in any rough neighborhood in any US city.

This movie is stark and furious, volatile and smart. It's almost 30 years old but feels like tomorrow morning. Couldn't be more real if it was a documentary.

Definitely, this should be seen by anyone who's dissatisfied with 'the system' and its endless idiocies, cruelties, and injustices — and by anyone who isn't.

"It's about a society on its way down, and as it falls, it keeps telling itself: 'So far so good... So far so good... So far so good.' It's not how you fall that matters. It's how you land."

Verdict: BIG YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦  

The Hate U Give (2018)
Free on DVD from your public library

A young black girl, Starr Carter, gets "the talk" from her father: If she's ever in a car that's pulled over by police, she must make no sudden moves, keep her hands always visible, and give the cops no reason to shoot.

Flash forward several years, and Starr is one of the few black kids at her high school, where she's toned down her blackness, because slang makes the white kids 'cool' but the same words make the black kids 'hood'.

And then one night she's riding in a car, and blue lights start flashing from behind. Like her daddy taught her, Starr puts her hands on the dashboard, makes no trouble, but she's riding with a boy who's black too, and what happens is what's happened so many times.

Starr is OK, but she's the only witness to her friend's absolutely unjustified killing by cop, which leaves her in the middle of an emotional and political hurricane. She has to deal with ordinary high school stuff, and also gang and cop and grand jury and media stuff, and family stuff and racial stuff, more stuff than any kid should have to deal with.

Most of the movie's beats are familiar, if you've followed coverage of the ongoing killings of black men, boys, and women by cops, but there are also factors I'd never thought about, being white and all.

The Hate U Give is definitely worth seeing, but some of it is over-amped or too squeaky clean, and I wish they'd hired someone a little less GQ to play Starr's white boyfriend. Wish the woman playing Starr (Amandla Stenberg) wasn't so distractingly gorgeous. Wish they'd had a bigger budget, enough to fill the streets for the protest scenes, which are so sparse they look like the suggestion of a protest. Wish the ending wasn't quite so pat.

But mostly it's successful, and I wish more movies were brave enough to tackle such a subject.

For no reason but racism, the novel it's based on, by Angie Thomas, is one of the most banned books in American schools.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Hateful Eight (2015)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Quentin Tarantino has been on suspension for a few years, me wondering what's in his head that he can't make a movie without having characters say 'nigger' over and over. He'd be a better moviemaker if he was a decent human, but the suspension only punishes me, not him, so I've grudgingly added QT to my watchlist again.

This one's a dark western wherein bounty hunter Kurt Russell is bringing an outlaw and murderer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, to be tried and hung. Samuel L Jackson plays another bounty hunter, Bruce Dern is a former Confederate officer, and there's Walton Goggins, Michael Madsen, and Tim Roth, though how those last few fit in is a little hazy for me.

Long story short (and it is long, almost three hours), there's a blizzard that leaves these folks and a few more stuck for several days inside Minnie's Haberdashery in Bumfuck, Wyoming. None of 'em much like the others, so there's drama and tension and, of course, limitless n-words.

A lot of what happens seems superfluous, Leigh and Madsen are mostly wasted, and Tarantino doesn't know what 'haberdashery' means — Minnie's is a restaurant, perhaps a lodge, but it's not a haberdashery. Toward the end, there's unnecessary narration, read poorly by Tarantino himself.

The film is certainly true to its title, though. All the major players are full of hate, and the story is hateful right back at 'em, which is fun.

The Hateful Eight is often aggressively unpleasant, and it's less pithy and profound, just plain less than Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, but there's no denying that it's watchable to the bloody, hateful end.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Haunted Casino (2007)
a/k/a Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Sid Haig, the near-legendary character actor from so many strange movies, finally gets top billing, and Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes) co-stars. No writer is credited, though, and that's more ominous than anything in the movie.

There's a casino that's long been abandoned — cards still on the poker tables, hundreds of slot machines left to rust, and all of it's covered with photogenic cobwebs.

An extremely bland 20-something white man has inherited the place, and plans to clean it up and reopen it for business. With his girlfriend and another very dull couple, they unlock the doors and start mucking about.

One of the couples enjoys making fake sex noises while fully clothed, which required me to turn the volume down, cuz I live in a shared house and nobody in the kitchen wants to hear the sound of screwin'.

The Haunted Casino is a horror movie by genre, but most of the drama involves playing cards. It's past the halfway point before anything happens that's spookier than an overflowing toilet. Haig and Berryman are given little to do, nothing interesting to say, and the movie's a big long bore.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Haunted House (1921)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Buster Keaton is a sticky-fingered bank teller, which is of course amusing, and ten minutes into this 21-minute short he finds himself at a comically haunted house, which is also, of course, amusing. The best bit is when Keaton checks into Hell.

This isn't one of Old Stone Face's best, but lesser Keaton is better than greater anyone else.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Haunting (1963; United Kingdom)
Streaming free at Tubi

"The dead are not quiet in Hill House."

A suave scientist is investigating whether a 90-year-old mansion is haunted. At least, he fancies himself a scientist, but he's rooting for ghosts. He's rented the empty mansion — "Hill House" — because, apparently, all its past residents have died mysteriously on the premises.

An increasingly troubled woman (Julie Harris) shares her inner thoughts in voiceover, and "Theodora, just Theodora" (Claire Bloom) is a mean lady who claims psychic powers. Richard Johnson plays the scientist, delivering every line like he's a cad in a bar trying for a hookup, which gets kinda funny, since his character is not looking for smoochy-woochy or hanky-panky.

The mansion is cool and underlit, with a rickety stairway that looms large in the story, and Russ Tamblyn from West Side Story plays the owner's smirking nephew. 

Based on Shirley Jackson's novel, The Haunting has great atmospherics, thanks to director Robert Wise.

It mostly just hints at anything supernatural, eschewing special effects, which makes it a smart flick for a smart audience. And remember, "A closed mind is the worst offense against the supernatural."

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Have You Got Any Castles? (1938)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

This is a Looney Tunes cartoon, but without Bugs or Daffy or any of the familiar characters.

It's a musical dance through the library, with characters from English Literature 101 leaping from the pages and shelves for a line or two, and then on to the next character from the next book.

It's only occasionally funny, and the black characters are drawn with stereotyped faces, but everything visually snaps, crackles, and pops enough to enjoy it.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

• The Hate U Give author Angie Thomas on why it's wrong to ban her Black Lives Matter novel 

• Houses aren't safe spaces in Jackson's fiction – they're stages for disruption

 8/20/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

Hawkeye (1988)
Hawks and Sparrows (1966)
Häxan (1922)
Heartbeeps (1981)
The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

... 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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