Tag: David Caruso

Freakin Friedkin!

When I think of 70s auteur cinema, I don’t think of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, and others. I think of Michael Cimino.

I also think of William Friedkin, who passed away yesterday at 87 years of age. Fans of the horror genre are in mourning because he made one of the most important films of the decade in The Exorcist. But let’s not forget his other pioneering achievement in Sorcerer, which, a few years before Heaven’s Gate, managed to steer Hollywood away from director-focused pictures. Friedkin was a pioneer in that way.

But he also directed The French Connection which garnered him an Oscar for Best Director. For me, the picture defined Hollywood cinema of the 1970s. Along with DP Owen Roizman (who also died earlier this year), Friedkin created a vision of NYC that was grimy and downright disgusting. Honestly, the city never looked better. While the picture presents itself as a run-of-the-mill police procedural, the ending flips the script. Instead of catching the bad guy, Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle accidentally kills a fellow cop and is left shooting at the shadows. The French Connection was a game-changer.

Of course, the movie is best known for its car chase sequence, where Friedkin bravely put at risk the lives NYC motorists and bystanders by failing to obtain permits to film such a thing. He was a maestro at shooting these scenes. He’d try to duplicate his success with the car chase in Jade, switching out the streets of NYC for San Francisco, and let’s just be honest: it was genius. But too bad that David Caruso is no Gene Hackman.

Billy Friedkin also claimed that he only ever did one take. I have a hard time believing that, but salute. If only Michael Cimino had learned that trick, Hollywood history might’ve turned out different.

RIP Billy Friedkin

King of New York

How did it take me this long to see the greatest movie ever made: The King of New York. It stars the greatest cast ever assembled; from Christopher Walken to Wesley Snipes, from Laurence Fishburn to David Caruso (and everyone in between)

I’m gonna shoot straight with you guys, I have no idea what it’s about. But I’ll tell you what happened: There’s a shootout in a hotel room and some dude busts in and says “room service mother fuckers!”. Christopher Walken gets mugged while on a subway and groping a woman. Instead of killing his muggers, he tosses them a wad of cash and offers them a job. Laurence Fishburn acts like a complete asshole at at a chicken joint. David Caruso, an actor from Queens, does a terrible Brooklyn accent. And who can forget Walken’s dorky-ass dance? Plus, Fishburn gets some killer one-liners, best one being “no one gets a free ride!” after slamming a cop hanging on the side of his car into a fire hydrant.

Naturally, the movie has a lull in the middle, but it picks up in the final act. And for those of us who have trouble paying attention, the moral of the story is summed up in the end: there’s little difference between cops and criminals (I guess that’s the point, I really wasn’t paying attention).

I don’t know if it’s as good as Abel Ferrera’s magnum opus Bad Lieutenant, but it’s pretty damn good. It’s definitely Christopher Walken at his peak before he became known for simply being Christopher Walken.

bill friedkin

The career of William Friedkin is a reminder of how hard it is to make a good film.

He hit two films out of the fuckin park with The French Connection and The Exorcist then kinda floundered from there (he did have a few notable films afterwards, namely Sorcerer and To Live and Die in LA, the latter of which I haven’t seen).

Sure Friedkin won his accolades here and there, but he is truly the maestro of one specific thing: directing car chases.

Everyone remembers Gene Hackman just plowing through cars and walls while Friedkin neglected to obtain permits to film such a thing in the French Connection (and apparently there’s a good chase sequence in To Live and Die in LA), but Friedkin’s crowning achievement, in my view, is in Jade.

Before David Caruso was spitting out one liners while rocking a pair of sunglasses in CSI: Miami, he tried his hand at being a film star. Jade was the absolute highlight of this period.

In the film, after Angie Everhart gets totally destroyed by a Ford Thunderbird, Caruso pursuits the vehicle in his POS Ford during a delightful chase where vehicles fly through the air down the streets of San Francisco (and Caruso does his best Gene Hackman impersonation).

The best part is when the chase goes through some parade and pedestrians attack the vehicles using martial arts. I guess that would make sense if you learn about other cultures while binging on cocaine.

Take a look: