June Scavenger: 4/30
#24: A film starring George C. Scott
http://letterboxd.com/scumbalina/list/alone-out-of-my-comfort-zone-june-scavenger/.

Sure, the plot sounds great but does it live up to what it promises? HELL YES. Absolutely holds no punches. I was expecting most of footwork to be done by Peter Boyle's character. I was expecting to go no seedier than strip clubs and "regular" pornography. I wasn't expecting George C. Scott to single-handedly beat the living shit out of the snuff film industry like a one man judge, jury and executioner. There is no more satisfying proof of Scott's talent than seeing him boil over into an explosion of parental rage directed at villainous sex trade scumbags.

On a side note, it invoked a memory of when I…

Hardcore is Paul Schrader’s lurid odyssey into the seedy underbelly of pornography and prostitution in 1970’s California. George C. Scott stars a conservative midwestern businessman who scours every street corner and dirty back alley in search of his missing teenage daughter whose been spotted appearing in underground porno films.

Coming off the success of writing Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece Taxi Driver, this film is essentially a B movie companion piece. Hardcore is a well written slow burn that has become slightly dated, but still manages to retain its potent commentary on the dark side of the City of Angels.

George C. Scott gives a tour de force performance as the religious calvinist Jake Van Dorn, Scott gives an earnest performance as…

From the opening moments of Hardcore you already have the world of Jake Van Dorn set up perfectly in front of your eyes, he is a single parent who loves his daughter very much. But in taking this seemingly ordinary image of an idealized American lifestyle, with the family’s own beliefs representing what already present themselves as so normalized by our own world, you have that world crumbling down rather quickly by the fact that another influence has entered the picture. Surely enough, you can already go ahead to point at Taxi Driver when thinking about another film that explores how the corrupted environment has slowly destroyed the world of Travis Bickle the way that we knew it, but what…

You know, I may have been too tired from playing Death Stranding for hours, but this was sort of s let down. So far early Schrader has been great to me, and with the log line of this film I should have loved it. There is A LOT here to like though. George C. Scott is fantastic as the Calvinist, shook up bottle of anger, Jake VanHorn. Peter Boyle was at his best which was commonplace at the time for him. His character and his performance come off as perfectly sleazy, but not awful guy. The contrast between his character and Scott is electric. I also love the dive into the porn industry. The interview scene is almost hilarious, and…