THE FACULTY: Aliens are Taking Over the World. Weigh It.

The Faculty (1998) – Directed by Robert Rodriguez – Starring Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Chris McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Patrick, Usher Raymond, Jon Stewart, Daniel Von Bargen, and Elijah Wood.

I love THE FACULTY. It’s one of those under-the-radar movies that I champion whenever I get a chance. Written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Robert Rodriguez, THE FACULTY is a really good, really smart high school horror film that deftly plugs into teenage anxiety to create characters that are built on clearly recognizable types, but then quickly outstrip them.

While not as clever a script as SCREAM, THE FACULTY is does a far better job with allowing its characters to become more complex as the film progresses. High schools are wonderfully awful places where kids try to figure out where they fit in the grand scheme and teachers try to successfully tread water until retirement hits; students in high school are amazingly easy to type based on surface appearances and Williamson starts with what everyone can see to begin his character examinations.

Williamson’s script does two things to complicate his characters: reveal hidden truths and let new talents emerge. For characters like Stan (Shawn Hatosy), the captain of the football team, Williamson reveals that Stan is tired of everyone kissing his ass. He tells Stokely (Clea DeVall), the grungy, solitary “lesbian,” that his tipping point came the previous year when his ‘D’ on an exam was changed to an ‘A’ by the teacher because he had a good year. This torques Stan off: “I earned that D,” he insists. “That was my D.” Stokely also gets the reveal treatment: first by telling Marybeth (Laura Harris), the cutesy new girl, that she’s not actually a lesbian. She just tells people that because it keeps people away. Later on, in response to Stan opening up to her, she opens up to him, telling him he was a great football player. Stan is both as surprised that Stokes follows football as he is pleased that she knew about him.

On the other side, we have characters birthing new talents as the film progresses and the alien takeover threat becomes more pronounced. Zeke (Josh Hartnett), the bad boy repeating his senior year, develops a natural leadership ability. When the kids are huddled in his garage-based laboratory, it’s Zeke who insists they all do a shot of his caffeine-based drug that he peddles at school. And later, when the kids have trapped Principal Drake (Bebe Neuwirth) in the gym and they’re hesitating to either shoot her or douse her with the caffeine, it’s Zeke who steps in, takes the gun, and sends a bullet through her forehead. Casey (Elijah Wood), the high school’s whipping boy, is allowed to leave his shell, becoming an important member of the group. He’s not the biggest brain, but he has the wits to see how things connect, and in the biggest turn, he becomes something of an action star when he’s the Last Kid Standing and needs to take down the alien queen all by his lonesome.

The one character who doesn’t really change all that much is Delilah (the always stunning Jordana Brewster), the snotty It Girl who dates Stan simply because he’s the quarterback of the football team and she’s the hottest girl in school. Obsessed with the school’s social hierarchy, she dumps Stan when he quits the team. We get a bit of a reveal in that she’s the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, but she’s not EIC so she can investigate hard hitting issues; she’s the EIC because she can use the paper to settle personal scores and embarrass people at the school. When she and Casey stumble onto the secret that one of the faculty is dead and being stored in the faculty room closet, she shows up at school the next day wearing glasses so she’s not as noticeable … as if that ever works anywhere except Metropolis. At the beginning of the film she dumps Stan because he’s no longer the top guy on the school’s social ladder and at the end of the film she’s dating Casey because he’s now the top guy, as the national media descends on the school to hear Casey’s story.

THE FACULTY brilliantly taps into realistic high school fears of not being cool and not being believed (not aliens). All of the kids are aware of the power of their coolness, or lack there-of, and keenly aware of their place in the social structure of the high school. In that regard, THE FACULTY has as much in common with The Breakfast Club as it does Scream, though like Scream, THE FACULTY is aware of the “rules” of the story. Stokely is a big sci-fi fan and clues the group in on the way these stories are supposed to work.

While the kids work together, they’re not all “all for one and one for all,” and their shifting importance to the group keeps the tension running high. The actual threat is a lot of adults standing around looking menacing, but I always felt the stakes were real in THE FACULTY, and that the kids knew how that. Crisply paced, tightly directed, and wonderfully acted, THE FACULTY is an under-appreciated gem.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN: I’m a Mean Motherf*ckin’ Servant of God

From Dusk till Dawn (1996) – Directed by Robert Rodriguez – Starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Ernest Liu, Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, Michael Parks, John Saxon, Kelly Preston, and John Hawkes.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN is a collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez; Tarantino wrote the script, Rodriguez directs the script, and Tarantino acts in the script. DUSK is really two movies mashed together, the Tarantino opening setting up the Rodriguez closing, and it’s a clear first run for their Grindhouse project a decade later.

In the first half of the film, we focus on Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Tarantino) Gecko’s run from the law. Seth is the cool bad-ass and Richie is the disturbed psychotic; the former kills only when necessary and the latter kills whenever he can. Both Clooney and Tarantino are fantastic as the brothers; while his status as an international movie star is now a given, DUSK was the film that proved Clooney could transition off the ER set and become a movie star. He’s electric as Seth, playing the cool customer who’s got the simmering anger waiting to explode beneath the surface.

We first see the brothers in action in a crummy roadside liquor store, operated by John Hawkes and visited by Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks, who also appears in Kill Bill and Planet Terror as the Ranger). The brothers are hiding in the back, keeping hostages close and mouths shut, but Richie kills McGraw with a bullet in the back of his head. Seth is furious, but Richie insists that he saw the cashier mouthing help to the Ranger. We know this is false, and Seth has to know this is false, but this is the lot he’s drawn so he ends up blowing up the liquor store before heading to Mexico.

They entered the store to get a map, and ended up in a bloodbath, which is the S.O.P. they follow for the rest of the film. They get a hotel room in order to contact their handler that guarantees a place for them in Mexico, and Richie ends up raping and killing their hostage. They kidnap Jacob and his two kids, Scott and Kate (Harvey Keitel, Ernest Liu, and Juliette Lewis) because they’ve got an RV that Seth is convinced can help get them across the border, and then when they stop at the Titty Twister bar to wait for their contact, a vampire massacre breaks out.

It’s the second half of the movie that most people remember, of course (I was a bit surprised when I watched DUSK again the other night that the Tarantino half of the movie takes an entire 45 minutes to work through), because this is where all the blood and killing and dancing Salma Hayek happens, but it’s the first-half of the movie that’s more enjoyable for me to watch. If Tarantino is remembered for only one thing when he’s done making movies, it will be his dialogue. While there’s nothing as memorable here as Pulp Fiction, or as cool as Kill Bill, or as intense as Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino knows how to play characters off of one another. When the Gecko brothers first encounter Jacob’s family, Seth wants to know what relationship Jacob and Scott have, asking, “What’s the story with you two, you a couple of fags?”

Jacob answers, “He’s my son.”

“How’s that happen? You don’t look Japanese.”

“Neither does he. He looks Chinese.”

“Well, excuse me all to hell.”

There’s a real unbalanced relationship between the five traveling companions that’s driven by Clooney and Keitel; Seth comes off as a likable guy, but one that’s never far from violence. He wants everyone to get along because he’s in a good mood, but Jacob stakes out his own ground in order to protect his kids. Seth is protective of the kids, too, knowing that Richie’s interest in Kate isn’t one of captor and hostage, but while he keeps Richie in check, he also lets Jacob know that he can unleash Richie if Jacob doesn’t do what he wants.

Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu are good as Kate and Scott as two kids who obviously love their father but are also intrigued by Seth’s lawlessness. When Seth demands that everyone drinks with him, Scott and Kate are hesitant at first but willing to knock a few back. The scene works because Seth and Jacob, seated next to each other, are clearly battling for control. “Are you so much of a f*cking loser that you can’t tell when you’ve won,” Jacob asks. Seth flips, but Jacob is right and Seth knows it.

At the Titty Twister, the tone shifts from Tarantino’s slow burn to Rodriguez’s splatter revelry. A bunch of Rodriguez regulars make an appearance (Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Hayek), Tom Savini and Fred Williamson are tossed into the mix, and after a non-strip table dance from Satánico Pandemonium (Hayek), it’s all vampire killing until the end. All of the vamp splatter is good fun, as each of the participants falls in turn, until we’re left with Seth, Jacob, Kate, and Scott.

Jacob is bit and he forces his kids to promise him they’ll kill him once he starts to turn. They don’t want to do it, of course, but he insists that he won’t be their father any more, but rather, “I’ll be a lap dog of Satan.” The final run through the vamps is a good shootout that sees Jacob turn lapdog, Scott get devoured, and only Kate and Seth survive. Kate lets Seth know that she’s available to go with him, but Seth tells her no, that El Ray is too rough a town for her. “I may be a bastard, Kate,” he insists, “but I’m not a f*cking bastard. Go home.”

As Seth and Kate drive away in separate directions, the camera pulls back to reveal that the Titty Twister was located atop an old Aztec temple, hidden and buried but still very much active.

There’s nothing legendary about FROM DUSK TIL DAWN and I can see why people would get frustrated with a film like this; Tarantino and Rodriguez are so talented that it could seem a bit odd that they’d combine their talents for a splatterfest, but it’s movies like DUSK that provide such an insightful key to their more respected and beloved works. Tarantino and Rodriguez love the entertainment aspect of movies more than the literariness of movies; they’re no more right, of course, than those who favor the other side of the coin, but neither of these men are ever all that interested in the deeper questions of life, the universe, and everything. They’re more interested in people trying to get through the day and past the obstacle in front of them.

Tucked between Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, between Desperado and The Faculty, (forgetting the forgotten Four Rooms, in which each directed one of the four sequences) DUSK doesn’t hold a candle to the films that come around it, but it’s still an enjoyable romp.

EL MARIACHI: The City I Thought Would Bring Me Luck Brought Only a Curse

El Mariachi (1992) – Directed by Robert Rodriguez – Starring, Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gómez, Peter Marquardt, and Reinol Martínez.

The film that launched Robert Rodriguez’s career still holds up as a tight, focused action movie about a mariachi mistaken for a killer who becomes a killer, first out of self-defense and then out of vengeance.

Carlos Gallardo’s performance as El Mariachi is completely engaging and inviting; he channels a warm honesty through his youthful appearance, able to smile in the brief moments of peace with Domino (Consuelo Gómez), even with all the craziness around him. It’s Mariachi’s openness and generally upbeat persona that carries us through the movie; he comes to town to find work playing his music and thinks this town will bring him luck, but a case of mistaken identity with the thug Azul (Reinol Martínez), who has come to town with a guitar case full of weapons to get his money from Moco (Peter Marquardt), has all of Moco’s killers trying to kill him instead.

I think what’s most impressive about the film is that Rodriguez keeps everything in line; much has been made about the fact that EL MARIACHI was made for only $7,000 which, I’m sure, contributes to this not being as long as Fellowship‘s Extended Cut, but even with all the excessive violence, there’s no wasted action in MARIACHI. One of the big difference between Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino is that despite all they have in common, Rodriguez is primarily about the coolness of the visual while Tarantino favors the spoken word.

Neither would work if they didn’t have good characters, of course, and Rodriguez puts four of them into play in EL MARIACHI. Mariachi’s goodness and earnestness is countered by his guitar-case wielding binary, Azul, a very bad dude who’s running a small operation out of a small jail and biding his time to go after Moco. Where Mariachi has an instrument of love in his case, Azul carries weapons of violence. Where Mariachi is a one-woman man despite his abilities to charm the crowd of ladies who come to watch him play, Azul has three women he lays with at the same time and is all business. Reinol Martínez is fantastic as Azul, playing the baddest guy in the film.

Domino is the woman Mariachi charms and falls for over the course of the film. He meets her when he comes into her saloon to look for a job, and his boyish charm works on her. She allows him to play and allows him to stay in her apartment upstairs. Domino also has a connection with Moco, who’s trying to woo her with gifts. Domino and Mariachi have good chemistry together; he keeps pushing his luck and she keeps pushing back, only to relent. He wants to play in her place, she says no, and then lets him to play despite not being able to play him. She lets him stay upstairs in his pace but when she goes up to check on him, she finds that he’s in her bath, so she pulls a “knife” on him (actually a letter opener) and forces him to play a song to prove he’s actually a mariachi.

Rodriguez does a good job bouncing these four around each other in this small town, blending a soft humor (mostly either from Mariachi or at his expense) with the copious amounts of violence. The story weaves around and around itself until the final confrontation at Moco’s compound. After Moco’s men grab Mariachi, only to have Moco cut him loose, Azul and Domino head to Moco’s place. When Moco finds out that Domino didn’t talk to him because she was with Mariachi, he flips his gourd and kills her, then his men cut down Azul, and then Mariachi arrives again – this time not knocked out in the back of a truck.

Moco shoots a hole through Mariachi’s hand, hindering his ability to ever play the guitar again, so after Mariachi takes out Moco and Moco’s men basically just shrug, Mariachi fills his guitar case with guns, puts Domino’s dog on his back, gets onto Domino’s motorcycle (bought for her by Moco), and drives off into the future. It’s a fitting end – the Mariachi who comes to town looking to ply his trade ends up falling in love with Domino, being mistaken for Azul, and killing Moco ends up leaving the town with a piece of each of them in tow, their identities now fused into his own identity, as if when they died physical deaths a piece of their soul was transferred into Mariachi.

If Nic Cage reads that last sentence, that’s totally his next movie.

EL MARIACHI still holds up as a tremendous modern western, and what Rodriguez proves here is that whether your budget is $7,000 or $270 million, it doesn’t cost an extra nickel to create solid characters or to know where to point your camera. The ending is both tragic and uplifting; the man of music has been transformed into a man of violence but is now filled with a greater sense of purpose, and a stronger desire to meet the world head on.