The first question is, of course, what the heck am I doing revisiting 52 Pick Up, John Frankenheimer's Elmore Leonard-based thriller from 1986. Well, to better battle the mild (I guess it must be mild, as it hasn't compelled me to break anything or anything) seasonal affective disorder that pays me a visit during the winter season (imagine!) I schedule quasi-marathon viewing sessions for my quasi-downtime, because pleasurable mental work sometimes keeps these particular blues at bay. The viewing choices are pretty, but not entirely, random. So, the other day-and-a-half I watched the great Dragon Dynasty DVD of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, one of the most purely enjoyable martial arts movies ever made. Then, the very good Sony DVD of Maurice Pialat's Van Gogh, this viewing inspired by rereading an essay on Manny Farber by Kent Jones, in which Farber and partner Patricia Patterson rhapsodize on the film. Pialat's penultimate picture is staggeringly good, but I was a little disturbed that it bears only a halting resemblance to the picture Farber and Patterson describe. But this isn't the place to get into that.
I'm not sure what made me pick 52 Pick Up; I vaguely recall a recent blog post about it somewhere, but can't find it. (UPDATE: Found it, and it's a good one, by Vince Keenan. Here. Thanks for the reminder, Filmbrain!) This film (it could be interpreted as a Frankenheimer stab at a Friedkin picture), in which three adult-industry-related lowlifes blackmail industrialist Roy Scheider via a very ugly and explicit snuff video of his girlfriend (Kelly Preston, no less!), is a more convincing sleazefest than most pictures of its ilk. Maybe one reason it's so convincing in its squalor is that it features more porn stars than, well, most porn movies of the day.
Let's have a look.
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