I’d never heard of Welcome Home, Brother Charles but from reading up, it sounds like it would make a great double feature with Doris Wishman‘s Deadly Weapons.
I first saw this a couple of years ago under the title Soul Vengeance. My memory of the film is fuzzy, but one thing I remember being surprised about at the time was seeing Charles Burnett's name in the credits.
Here's a transcript of some of the conversation by the commentators over the trailer on the Blu-ray edition of 42nd Street Forever,
[Chris Poggiali]: This was one of three films Fanaka made while he was a student at UCLA. This was his first feature and he made it as an undergraduate. He then went on to make Emma Mae which was his Masters thesis film. Then Penitentiary I think as a thesis film as well. He just stayed at UCLA for most of the 70s because he said it was the easiest way to made films.
[Michael Gingold]: I would love to know what the staff made of this one when they saw it! I wonder what his grade was on this particular student project!
[Poggiali] Not only was he the first black filmmaker to get an AFI grant, I think he has to be the only film student to have shot three student films and had all three released theatrically. All three played all over the United States.
domino harvey wrote:Gary finally gives us a screen grab of a giant cock in his Welcome Home Brother Charles review #progress
I've not watched the disc yet, but unless that's some crazy forced perspective shot, that must be a fake.
And Gary's subsequent review of To the Devil a Daughter might have his most (unintentionally?) NSFW collection of screenshots in the history of the site. Seriously, probably don't open that one at work, because, he went almost everywhere he could have gone (and incidentally, also spoiled one of the most grotesque reveals of the film).
McCrutchy wrote:
And Gary's subsequent review of To the Devil a Daughter might have his most (unintentionally?) NSFW collection of screenshots in the history of the site. Seriously, probably don't open that one at work, because, he went almost everywhere he could have gone (and incidentally, also spoiled one of the most grotesque reveals of the film).
I love the screenshot montage of faces surrounding the upskirt.
Gary Tooze on the Day After wrote:It is full of enthusiasm diverging off into other social awareness films with their political leanings showing through. I wasn't crazy about that aspect or the occasional F-bomb.
Is Gary right wing now too? I haven't heard this commentary so maybe the commentators go off into right wing comments and Gary's speaking out as a liberal? Either way, not something I recall coming up before in one of his writeups
A cursory check on both commentators twitter accounts would indicate they certainly lean to the left. So you could be right. That said, It is also possible that Gary just doesn't like people talking politics in audio commentaries, regardless of leanings.
I might suggest that its exceedingly unfair to draw conclusions on Gary from these scant few words. In today's environment people may be unfairly prejudiced by even the slightest accusation. I think we can safely say that Gary is a very openminded cineaste with megatons (pun intended) of writing and capping to evidence that. If I had to guess, I would imagine he just thinks the commentators sound "stupid", as evidenced by his complaint that they swear for effect, when we know he is certainly not a prude. Benefit of the doubt from me anyways. Also, in typical beaver fashion, he goes back and calls the commentary a valuable feature in the summary. Sloppy yes, politically divisive....very likely not.
Dom just asked if he was right wing. The idea that this is some kind of libel that we have to protect Gary Tooze from by giving him the "benefit of the doubt" is ridiculous. Many, many people are right wing. I didn't sense any kind of accusation in what Dom asked.
For what it's worth, he has expressed admiration for Ayn Rand in the past and considers The Fountainhead one of his favourite movies. I'm not sure how relevant this is though - we've all been reading his stuff for years and the fact that it's taken until now for people to speculate on his personal views is pretty good evidence that his politics doesn't inform his practice in any significant way.
Hey, I wish it wasnt a libelous kind of suggestion, but in the US anyway, things seem to be pretty hard line these days from both sides(and yes there are only two). So, possible outcome are exalted martyrdom (a la Trump), or dismissal (a la Roseanne). Gary has also praised Godard and many other flagrantly lefty filmmakers, so Id like to think hes quite fair and unbiased in his assesments, and I agree with your last paragraph. Sorry, but I have appreciation for anybody actually willing to listen to a disc commentary they dont like long enough to form an opinion. I certainly dont have the time.
If you check out who DVDBeaver follows on Twitter - https://twitter.com/DVDBeaver/following - you'll a lot of Trump and Fox accounts - Trump, Ann Coulter, Sarah Sanders, Tucker Carlson etc as well as a bunch of other MAGA stuff and anti-liberal accounts. He also follows Kanye (or Ye).
Orlac wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:01 pm
And once again Beaver manages to zero in on a shower scene...
I don't get it. Are statements like these an in-joke around here, or are people genuinely upset by the content of some screen captures? The gym/shower set was quite amazing. I'd grab a capture of it too!
Big Ben wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:51 am
If a potentially lewd scene can be captured Tooze has almost always done so in the screen grabs. It's a running in joke.
Exactly. Be it an upskirt shot, a bra-less picture or a nude scene, even if it lasts 2 frames within a 3h30 movie, he'll get them. Which I always found surprising, since I was told the majority of Gary's screen captures are around chapter skips, and I'd be surprised to learn most of the lewd or suggestive frames turned out to randomly be around chapter skips too !
I don't think people here are upset about the screencaps themselves, but over the years, such an insistance at exhaustively capturing any suggestive picture has become more and more debated. I myself don't care so much (and actually used to do so too), but I understand how people might wonder why Gary seems so systematically compelled to capture those (even if it is called DVD Beaver after all). I guess it might simply generate more trafic to his website ?