CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT (Unobstructed View)

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut
Directed by Tinto Brass 
Written by Gore Vidal
Starring Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Teresa Ann Savoy, Peter O'Toole
Running time 2 hours and 58 minutes
Currently unrated but contains adult language, drinking, some violence, copious nudity, and other sexual situations.

On DVD & Blu-ray now, coming to digital on Oct. 18th, and as a 4K Box Set on Oct. 22nd, from Unobstructed View

by “Doc” Hunter Bush, contributor, host and Podcast Czar

Synopsis:

Stop me if you've heard this one before: In 1976, Bob Guccione the founder of Penthouse Magazine, renowned novelist and essayist Gore Vidal, and Italian arthouse director Tinto Brass all joined forces to create one of the most hotly-contested and divisive films, arguably of all time. With a classically-trained cast of British stage actors, decadent costumes, and elaborate sets and props - including a full-scale Roman boat that was one of the largest props ever constructed at that time - Caligula was destined to be talked about.

Telling the story of the rise and fall of the infamous emperor (Caesar) of Rome whose four-year reign began with good faith and increasingly slid into corruption, indulgence and perversion. Director Tinto Brass was hired under the auspices of making a film satirizing man's lust for power, and allegedly Gore Vidal's original screenplay was more historically accurate with regards to Caligula's sexuality - early promotional ads for the film even included a quote from the screenplay of Caligula saying "What better proof that I am God. I have a husband. And a wife. I am all that is and shall ever be". However, Bob Guccione had other ideas.

With more dicks than a private eye convention, more boobs than a three stooges marathon, Caligula wouldn't appeal to more puritanical audiences already, but apparently Guccione wanted his production to fully blur the lines between art-house film and hardcore pornography. He shot his own fully pornographic b-roll on the side and at one point decided that Tinto Brass had done enough work on the film's final edit, locking the director out of the editing suite so Guccione could cut in all the full penetration his lens could hold. Still he excised all mentions of Caligula's bisexuality so as to not alienate potential audiences.

The original Caligula is still one of the most notorious disasters in film history. Almost no one is happy with their association with it, some even having their names removed from the credits, and few accounts of what movie anyone thought they were making align. Ironically, Caligula's tagline and purportedly its ultimate lesson is "Absolute Power Corrupts" and about the one thing anyone can agree on is that Bob Guccione didn't take that lesson to heart.

What Features Make it Special:

On the 4-disc Collection (*) includes:

• Disc 1: The Ultimate Cut
• Caligula: The Ultimate Cut
• Cannes 2023 Teaser
• English Closed Captions
• French Canadian Subtitles
• Audio Commentary with editor Aaron Shaps and producer and reconstructionist Thomas Negovan
• Audio Commentary with author Grant Morrison and producer and reconstructionist Thomas Negovan
  
  
• Disc 2: 1980 Theatrical Version
• Caligula: Restored Original 1980 Theatrical Version
• Restored Original Theatrical Trailer
• English Closed Captions
  
  
• Disc 3: Caligula: The Bonus Materials
• "The Orgy of Power" interview with Tinto Brass
• The Making of Caligula
• The Guccione Scandal
  
  
• Disc 4: Audio Soundtrack [CD]
• Caligula: The Ultimate Cut Soundtrack

(*) The 2-Disc Blu-Ray and DVD releases have the same features as Discs 1 and 2, with the addition of "The Guccione Scandal" from Disc 3

 

Why You Need to Add it to Your Media Library:

Malcolm McDowell's Caligula performance is electric, full of energy, and sadistic tomfoolery. Ultimately, he is the whole damn show here, but that's not to undermine the contributions of everyone else in the cast. Comparatively brief appearances from legendary actors Peter O'Toole and John Guilgud, and larger supporting performances from Teresa Ann Savoy and (one of the most beautiful women to ever exist) Helen Mirren all light up the screen and match (or counter) McDowell's mania to tremendous effect.

The four-disc collection also includes an all-new score for The Ultimate Cut by Troy Sterling Nies. It's an interesting score, with lots of droning tones and slight distortion that slightly reminded me of Neil Young's (much more heavily-distorted) guitar tones from his score to Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. The minimalism of it contrasted well with the decadence onscreen.

On a lot of levels, this is a fascinating artifact, if nothing else. Not only is it a version of Caligula that was thought to no longer exist, BUT it allegedly contains NO FOOTAGE used in the previously released, 1979 theatrical version! Supposedly, The Ultimate Cut is built entirely from alternate takes and non-explicit b-roll and that's ...just an incredible thing. Huge if true, as they say.

On top of that, all available versions also include the original theatrical release, so you can go through and double check that previous assertion, if you're so inclined. And even if not, you'll be able to watch the original, which is hard to track down on its own. So you're getting two films: one whose content and controversy makes it nearly impossible to find on streaming, and the second which, up until a few years ago, was thought to be as likely to exist as your average bigfoot! 

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is available on DVD & Blu-ray now, coming to digital on Oct. 18th, and as a 4K Box Set on Oct. 22nd from Unobstructed View.

"F9: THE FAST SAGA" (2021)

"F9: The Fast Saga"
Directed by Justin Lin
Written by Daniel Casey & Justin Lin (screenplay)
Starring Vin Diesel, John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Sung Kang, Nathalie Emmanuel, Helen Mirren, etc.
Running time 2 hours, 23 minutes
MPAA rated PG-13 "for sequences of violence and action, and language"

By: Hunter Bush

They let Helen Mirren drive! THE PROPHECY HAS BEEN FULFILLED!

Hi. I'm Hunter, a late-in-life convert to the world of The Fast & The Furious. Back in 2001, I was a young man trying to define myself; to figure out who I am. Not an uncommon situation, but I was going about it all wrong. Instead of trying any- and everything, I was carefully limiting what I exposed myself to; instead of joining a group of my friends who were going to see the first Fast & Furious, to see if I would like it, I declined because "What if I DID like it? Would I have to become a Car Guy? Etc., etc." Silly, teenage stuff.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't have loved it. Don't get me wrong, it's a perfectly effective car racing-based actioner (and it gets more rewarding when you've seen more of the franchise) but it wouldn't have blown back the hair of 18-year-old me. A few years later, however, I similarly turned down an invite to see Fast & Furious 3: Tokyo Drift in theaters with roughly that same group of friends, under the reasonable and defensible ground that I hadn't seen the first two. I self-fulfilling prophecy that assured I missed what is one of my favorite installments on the series.

I had unknowingly done myself a terrible disservice.

Toyko Drift flippin' rules! As a film, it's the first in the Fast Franchise to start to lean on the wall a little bit; to push the tonal boundaries that would otherwise have (probably - this is all speculation) found the franchise becoming another Direct To Video staple. You'd catch one of the first Fast & Furiouses on TV, wonder what happened to that series, and end up down a Wikipedia rabbit hole where you found out that the 11th one was released a year ago and starred some "Really? Him?" -level celebrity like Joe Rogan or something (shudder to think).

As I said, this is all speculative, but it's an educated guess based on my lifetime watching flicks. The first one comes out, does well, gets a sequel (from a notable director - R.I.P. John Singleton) but the sequel doesn't have a LOT to do with the first one. It's a thematic sequel, tied to the original by one actor (R.I.P. Paul Walker) and a word cloud of nebulous concepts such as "cars", "undercover cop", and "crime". It also does well and gets a sequel: Tokyo Drift. And that's where Justin Lin comes in (he's the director for F9, which is why I'm taking this walk - be patient).

Tokyo Drift has, ostensibly, nothing to do with the previous two installments besides similarly nebulous conceptual ties (until it does) but it's just the shot in the arm the franchise needed. As I said, it plays with the tone, adding a heightened melodrama, stylish direction, larger than life characters and tons of amazing car action that usually ends in equally amazing destruction! There were car stunts and crashes in the previous flicks, but never so lovingly depicted. Y'know how people used to use the phrase "food porn" to describe sumptuously-photographed pictures of your dinner? Well this would be "car crash porn" if that wasn't already the concept for a Cronenberg movie. There's just something so satisfying in watching these gorgeously designed and decorated cars turn into modern art sculpture and then burst into flames.

Lin took over directing duties on the next 3 Fasts & Furiouses, including Fast Five (the fifth one, obvs) which is probably still my favorite because it is THE true turning point for the franchise. Fast Five is the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door from her sepia farmhouse into the technicolor spectacle of Oz; when the franchise goes from a reasonably straight vehicular action series to being a Saturday morning cartoon. All it takes is one vault heist. Do you remember the moment in Speed when they manage to jump a city bus over the gap in an incomplete highway and you're just kind of like "Sure" because you're so invested and also you're just having too much fun to care? The vault heist in Fast Five is like that, but for about 20 minutes. The laws of realistic physics stop applying (though the sequence is pretty much entirely achieved through practical effects) and you're left with Pure Cinema. Something is happening that I know intellectually to be impossible to the point of comedy but not only do I believe my eyes, but I actually care about it all. Like I said: Pure Cinema.

After that, the franchise is fully a Saturday morning cartoon (specifically M.A.S.K.) but with more unironic heart than almost any other franchise I can think of. Not just of the "from one character to another character" variety either. The folks making these movies want us to enjoy them! They want us to cheer and clap when our favorite characters show up, and to get teary eyed when we think they might not make it, and then to cheer and clap through teary eyes when they do! In a world where talking about Star Wars around the dinner table is quickly getting to be just as verboten a topic as religion or politics, it's nice to have a franchise clap a hand on your shoulder and welcome you with a tall cool (franchise staple) Corona, y'know?

How much you, personally, will enjoy F9 depends on which side of that sepia farmhouse door you like your movies on. And unlike the Star Wars conversation, there are no wrong answers. If you're looking purely for car racing and realistic vehicular action though, you're going to be disappointed. The Fasts & Furiouses have long been flirting with what I think of as Car Superpowers: not only the ability to make cars do things that are highly unlikely (which happens) and not just having them do things that seem down right impossible (lotta that) but also to manipulate the cars as though they were an extension of themselves. Case in point: in more than one of these movies, Dom (Vin Diesel) will "catch" someone with his car. They will fall, say, 70 feet but rather than hitting the hard concrete, they land on a nice, soft car. And we are to believe this is *better* and, y'know what? It is. Or at least I do.

If you're someone who is on board with all the craziness of the recent sequels - the big action set pieces and such - F9 has them in bunches. If you've seen a trailer or two, you've got a decent idea of what's coming: explosive chase sequences, dangerous and hilarious fun with industrial strength electro magnets, some kinda enormous un-explodable military transport, etc. but seeing it all executed is tremendous fun.

F9 is subtitled "The Fast Saga" and while it would be obvious to say that this film is about "Fambly" - because they're all about "Fambly" - this is still the one most concerned with the concept of legacy. It's also the most flashback-heavy installment and while that necessitates the scenes set in the here & now be a bit exposition heavy at first, eventually things settle into just being an amusement park ride. Will you go into this thinking that it's faintly ridiculous that Dom has NEVER mentioned having a brother Jakob (John Cena) before? Maybe, but once you're in these flashbacks, seeing how things played out, you'll at least somewhat buy the logic of why he's never been brought up. Of course, that's the point, but it's really well done.

During the lockdown, my house watched all the Fast & Furious films, finishing up with the Hobbs & Shaw spin-off and Fast 8: The F8 of the Furious in May of this year, so all these things are quite fresh in my mind. So when we see young Dom (Vinnie Bennett) straight out of jail, setting himself on the path to becoming the champion street racer from the first film, I noticed that the handful of kids standing behind him looked a lot like Letty, Mia, Jesse and Vince, his crew from that first flick. But there's no ham-handed close-ups of them, no dialogue exchanged between them, none of that hokey shit that most other franchises wouldn't be able to restrain themselves from doing.

Restraint is an odd thing to be talking about in regards to F9, a film where Vin Diesel rights an overturned truck as it rolls down a hill using controlled explosions; where smashing your car bodily into the side of a mountain and rolling 30 times is not only the preferred scenario, but a totally fine and survivable thing to do; where Roman (Tyrese) posits that he and the entirety of the crew are in fact immortals because of the things they have survived, but here I am. That restraint is so unusual and so refreshing. It really feels as though not only is the franchise in good hands with Justin Lin but that Lin respects the fans enough NOT to do that kind of thing.

That thing I said at the start about Helen Mirren getting to drive? That happened because she was very vocal about wanting to drive a car in one of these flicks and thus the fans wanted that for her. So Lin & co. delivered. But if you just give fans what they think they want without really caring about it, it's pandering and feels hollow when you watch the movie. Like seeing a kid in a supermarket throw a tantrum because they want a candy bar until the exhausted parent doesn't care anymore and there's just some red faced tot with tears running down their face and a chocolate bar jammed in their maw. Justin Lin (as well as co-screenwriter Daniel Casey) want the same things as the fans. They want Helen Mirren to drive; they want that kid to have that candy bar.

At the end of a long day, after all the dumb adult responsibilities are out of the way, we all deserve a treat. It could be a candy bar, or a Corona, or two hours spent with a bunch of goofballs and badasses in nitro burning funny cars saving the world and celebrating with a BBQ.

F9: THE FAST SAGA  is in theaters June 25th.




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This piece was written for MovieJawn, a fabulous site where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine, or listen to me on the  Hate Watch / Great Watch  podcast! Support the MovieJawn Patreon here!

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