QT4: BIG PIMPING FRIDAY with THE MACK, SAINT JACK and THE CHINESE MACK!

BIG PIMPING FRIDAY.... a triple bill of films celebrating the world of pussy for sale and the men that push it.

I brought my own harem of hot women to this night... On staff tonight are Annette Kellerman, Dorothy Parker, Glenda the Good Witch, Ivory and even a Moon Fairy. The 2nd row of the Drafthouse screening room is pimped out in style. I have my leopard spotted creepers on, and Mouth is on hand with his pimp hat with peacock feather at full length.

The Drafthouse is serving up 40 oz bottles of various labels of Malt Liquor in a brown paper bag... And the theater is packed to the point of folding chairs on the side of the hall.

Ya see... the power of pussy compels and fills the house. The funny part of it is.... I’d say the room had a higher percentage of women than on any other night of the festival. WHERE DID THEY COME FROM? There was this group of three supermodel gorgeous babes sitting on the front row to my left that were just stunning. And later in the evening I hear from Dorothy Parker that she’s sick and tired of hearing conversations in the women’s room talking about getting Quentin’s cock and holding on to it. She was disgusted. This... I suppose brought out the honeys that think... Hmmm... the films will be sexy... I’ll be able to latch on to Quentin. Sad... really.

But it has no real bearing on the night... there’s just lots of tight dresses and miniskirts in the hall tonight. It’s like the screen was spilling with talents.

Quentin hits the stage excited... he loves the name of the night... BIG PIMPING FRIDAY...

“When I called up Rebecca at the Film Society to give her the rundown on tonight, I told her that for BIG PIMPING FRIDAY there was going to be THE MACK, SAINT JACK and THE CHINESE MACK.... She said, ‘so there will be four movies?’... (laughter from the room)... No, that’s just the name of the night man! But how cool is that? Can you imagine what sort of film you would have to make to live up to the name BIG PIMPING FRIDAY? That’s actually how I came up with RESERVOIR DOGS... I was like, I’d see a movie called RESERVOIR DOGS, and then had to write the film.”

And that is how the night began.

The crowd was wound up tight... Quentin didn’t have to do much introducing for THE MACK... it is a well known film in these parts... but he did have some notes about his print. You see... he paid a mint for his print of THE MACK... He got home, put it on the projector... sat down and watched it and it was gorgeous... pristine... looked like it had never seen a projector. Only... there is stuff missing... but not like the raunchy stuff... just things that were a little slow... It’s like some professional editor went in and decided to pick up the pace a bit. Not only that but Quentin said that somebody put the ‘Player’s Ball’ in there twice. Quentin has just bought a scope 16 print of the original cut of THE MACK... but he’ll hold on to this print which he calls the ‘genius cut’ of the film.

Now, you folks that have been with me for a while, might remember that I reviewed THE MACK back in 1997... but on that particular night, I had ingested 2 or 3 40 oz Malt Liquors and was feeling no pain and all my details and thoughts were put on retardomode.... so this time out, I decided to let the film intoxicate me... and boy did it.

I love THE MACK.... This time while watching it, I realized that most of the pimps in the film are real live Oakland Pimps according to Quentin... and that adds an entirely new layer to the film.

Ya know.... the movie is very much Blaxploitation, but at the same time this is a document of such an era... such a time period where you can’t not look at it. The film takes place in Oakland... in the time period where Urban Ghetto Crime was spiking... When the U.S. really started to first pay attention to ghetto crime.... started labeling it BLACK CRIME and began to start filling the jails with Blacks... and the filmmaking at the time began reacting. Heroes switched positions... Suddenly the cops became the bad guys... the pimps and the drug dealers became the heroes... THE MAN was being labeled as exactly that.

In THE MACK... our hero is GOLDY played by Max Julien... and the film begins with him basically upside down bleeding... while a pair of cops ponder whether to save him, arrest him, kill him or simply leave him to bleed.

Julien is a completely delusional ego-maniacal control freak and an all around loathsome character.... but ya know what... besides that... he’s ok. He’s got rules and ethics within his realm of existence. And somehow this film makes you completely root for him to acquire more women and turn them to whores. You like him even after he throws the girl that taught him the ropes to the street and shacks up with a higher class White Woman.

His partner in crime is Slim, played by Richard Pryor... and he’s pretty much scum too... but he’s Richard Pryor... you have to be on his side.

THE MACK also has some of the best damn dialogue you’ll ever see in a film.

“When you hear grown people talking, you shut the fuck up!” is now so completely in my library of put downs it ain’t even funny.

The film has the straight and narrow followers of righteousness... but they are portrayed as beating a dead horse... They are fools for playing the man’s game. The rules of the street exist because that is all there is on this side of town. When hypocrisy is pointed out to Goldy... he doesn’t see a problem with it.

He’s peddling pussy and that’s been a game since the dawn of time. When you watch his planetarium mind control journey through space for his women... You’ll stare at amazement. I mean... Our world was once... so much cooler in the pre-Reagan years....

Pre-Politically Correct.

Here you could show a charismatic mind-controlling pimp as a hero of a film... You would be KILLED today releasing this movie. The world is so damn uptight now. But man, this movie has a heartbeat... it has a pulse.... and it rules.

Now, I don’t know how on Earth you could follow up THE MACK with anything... but Quentin knows how to do it.

The next film on the list was... Peter Bogdanovich’s SAINT JACK.... We’d seen the trailer twice during the festival... and Father Geek had been going on about his anticipation to see this film again... He last saw the film in 1979 and his memory was of a wonderful film.

Well... When all was said and done, SAINT JACK won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor at the QT QUATTRO. Bogdanovich and Ben Gazzara took the prizes and it wasn’t even close.

Personally, I had to agree. SAINT JACK is a fantastic movie... (Not available currently on Video, Dvd or Laserdisc! Though a search of ebay revealed one copy available there from a video release in the early eighties)

Quentin’s intro stated that had this film came out today... exactly as is... and was released by Miramax... Bogdanovich, Gazzara and Bogdanovich&Sackler would all be nominated and possibly win the Academy Awards for Directing, Acting and Writing.... but that when this film came out... Independents just didn’t get any respect at all... there was no push...

This was a film being produced by Roger Corman and Hugh Hefner... there was no way ‘legitimate’ awards circles would look twice at the film. They probably saw the names of the producers and figured it to be whacking material... certainly... this is a movie that isn’t thought ill of... it is simply not thought of at all.

HOWEVER, that should change. This movie is fantastic in structure, story-telling, dialogue, characters, atmosphere, acting and just about any other area you can think of.

First... the structure is brilliant. The film is told through a series of glimpses upon Saint Jack’s life... Saint Jack is in fact, Ben Gazzara in what must be... alongside his character of Cosmo Vitelli in Cassavetes’ THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE.... his best role on screen. Now ol Jack Flowers is a pimp in Singapore. Now the reason for the glimpses on Jack Flowers’ life is that he is asked to pick up an accountant played by Denholm Elliot (Marcus Brody of INDIANA JONES fame), who flies in once a year from Hong Kong to handle the books for a pair of drug dealer types in Singapore. Jack and Denholm’s character of William Leigh become friendly acquaintances...

I love this structure... You get a glimpse of where this pimp is in his life every now and again... And it is such a effortless structure. It reminds me in a way of how these festivals of Quentin’s play into my life. The first one, I’m near crippled, starting out on the net for the first time... and now... well I’m not crippled anymore and my site is whatever it is. But it’s a great structure for examining a life of someone through an occasional acquaintance...

You see Jack go from low level pimp to moderately successful whorehouse operator... to pimping for the U.S. Government at R&R camps during Vietnam... to back to having nothing. GREAT STRUCTURE.

The story telling is flawless... the movie didn’t start till around 11:30 to Midnight... It moved like a dream. The photography so completely capturing late seventies Singapore. The prostitutes and Billy Boys (transvestites) are all real. The cab drivers are real cab drivers. Bogdanovich shot this film very low budget and with the maximum level of freedom.

You’ve never seen Denholm Elliot as good as he is here... I will never look at Marcus Brody quite the same. He’s brilliant here. Gazzara is Bogart’s full equal here... making a harder and tougher film than Bogart’s Hay’s Committee regulated career would allow. But Gazzara is perfection here.

Best scene for me is a sequence in the R&R camp. You see a Singapore whore knocked out of a room by a naked young soldier. He’s beating the shit out of her. People pour out of every room trying to stop him. They are separated. Jack Flowers arrives... checks out the girl... gets her some help. He then looks at the door where the guy who did this awaits. As an audience member... you are expecting a really mean and violent scene. Instead... You watch as Jack enters the room... Looks at the boy... can’t possibly be older than 19. When Jack first arrived we see him glance where the boy is being held... we get an ever so brief glimpse at the boy full frontal. You can’t help but notice he has a very small penis. In Gazzara’s eyes... as he looks at the boy, you see the whole story. This girl must’ve giggled.... the boy’s fragile ego and violent military life caused him to strike out.... Gazzara can see regret and frustration in the boy’s face... and he just turns and walks out.

THIS IS SUCH AN HONEST AND REAL MOMENT. I was actually stunned by how well Bogdanovich handled this moment. And the film is filled with them. Just fantastic vignettes about Jack Flowers’ life and his moments with his friend from Hong Kong... William.

Even Bogdanovich himself plays a guy working for the military that works with Jack... Great little performance from Peter here.

This is a great indie film. It really deserves the Criterion Treatment. It’s just a fantastic film. The audience erupted in applause afterwards. Great great great unknown film. SEEK IT OUT IF YOU CAN!!!

“People make love for so many crazy reasons, why shouldn’t money be one of them.” What a great line.... Man... SEE THIS MOVIE... Keep your eyes on E-BAY for video prints. GREAT FILM.

After SAINT JACK many people left... they figured that THE CHINESE MACK was going to simply be a terrible film and decided to hit the road.

FOOLS! These people have no faith in Quentin as a programmer... and are sleepyheaded fools! CHINESE MACK was soooooo much fun.

Quentin comes out.... tells us how he figured that this was a product of some Hong Kong producer wanting to capitalize on the success of THE MACK by making a Chinese version with kung fu to slap into theaters in the Black Community (which during the seventies dug the hell out of Kung Fu movies)... but when Quentin got his print, he was happy to see that not only was that not the case, but they made a pretty damn good kung fu film that really has a real reason to have MACK-ing going on.

Folks... the kung fu and the Hijinks were grand in the film... but there is ONE REASON THAT YOU MUST SEEK OUT THIS FILM!!!

The Dog Fight.

I can not believe that I have seen with my own eyes in 35 mm the dogfight that I have seen. These two dogs rip into one another. This is no holds barred fight to the death animal violence. Some people got up and left... it was simply too much... I was in stunned silence as one dog is ripping the ear off the other, while the other is ripping the front haunch off.. the whole time... you hear the popping and twisting of cartilage, the barks and screams of pain from both dogs while they continue to entwine in painful death throes... ASTOUNDING. I was just.... stunned.

And the penis kung fu death blow..... and the “Mother?”.... OH MY GOD.

Quentin pulled off an absolute perfect night of film. BIG PIMPING FRIDAY was a great fucking night of film. I left with such a buzz... I can’t even say. man.... GREAT DAY...

The next night is GOOD OL BOY flicks with WALKING TALL : The trilogy!!! Muhahahahahaaaa!!!!