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bironic
The list of Zahn McClarnon-related sources to review is piling up. Let's start easy, with movies.
Spoilers for most of these. ♥ for the ones I'm glad to have seen.
Searchers 2.0 (2007) ♥
A shoestring-budget, absurdist road trip movie about two washed-up actors determined to hunt down an old movie director who mistreated them on set when they were young. Directed by Alex Cox, who seems to like casting Zahn McClarnon in oddball supporting roles; no complaints from me.
This movie probably had some stuff to say about Western film stereotypes and whitewashing of Native roles and Hollywood hypocrisy and the sacrifices people make in the name of moviemaking, but I skimmed too much to find out. The humor was not my humor, the acting (deliberately?) awkward, the pacing too slow.
ZAHN FACTOR
Zahn cut off all his hair after filming Into the West. Searchers 2.0 came a couple of years after that, so it had only grown out to his shoulders. Super cute.
He showed up maybe half an hour in, playing a gas station employee, Rusty, who turned out to have been in one of the same movies as the co-star. He narrowed his eyes, got real close, and said the guy had such a good time bullying Rusty during production that Rusty quit acting. Then, being in a comedy, he listed a series of increasingly awful things that happened after he got home. The co-stars made a hasty getaway.
I thought that would be it, but then he reappeared in a dream sequence, wearing a golfing outfit complete with houndstooth cap and argyle sweater/socks, grinning and spouting nonsense about a mystical philosophy of nonviolence. A total delight. Here is the second half of the scene.
I thought that would be it, but then the co-stars ran out of gas again and returned to the station, where Rusty claimed no grudges and gave them a tip on where to find the guy they were after.
And then he showed up yet again toward the end, in his golfing outfit for real this time. Along with some cousins? uncles? in similar getups. His golf ball played a pivotal role in the plot.
CONCLUSION
In case that doesn't convey the WTFery that was this movie, consider this line from a memorial service for someone who turns out to not have been dead:
"There will come a time when all of us will be dust, nothing, less than zero. But you can be sure that somewhere, in some cave, the radioactive dregs of our descendants will be worshipping single 35-millimeter frames of Perseus vs. the Space Monsters featuring Fred Fletcher."
Yellow Rock (2011)
Blah blah some bounty hunter-type white men in the settlement days* go looking for a missing person and borrowDr. Quinn, Medicine Woman a redheaded lady doctor who lives on the outskirts of a Black Paw Indian village plus one of the young Indian warriors, Michael Spears, for help, blah blah they trespass on a sacred graveyard and the bad bounty hunters go bad but the good guys mostly survive and also there is a spirit ghost thing and a terrible, terrible voiceover at the beginning and end.
Zahn played a villager who translated for the visitors. He started out with a cringey accent but soon dropped it. He was present at a Standard Hollywood Indian Ceremony to send off Dr. Quinn and Michael Spears, then reappeared in the background to prep someone's horse for the journey. At the end, he sat bareback on a horse and looked solemn while the last bad guy got his comeuppance. I liked the three seconds when he nudged his horse forward. Graceful, and you could tell he actually had to guide it so it wouldn't bump into those around him.
*to use the settler term for it
Resolution (2012) semi-♥
Indie flick about a 30-something white dude who forces his 30-something white dude drug addict BFF to quit cold turkey in an abandoned one-room house in the kind of middle-of-nowhere indie-flick rural area where you run into one or two bizarre characters per day. Meanwhile, something spooky unfolds involving various bits of technology and an invisible observer.
Eye-rolly at the start, with way too much ~meta~ about ~storytelling~, but the BFF said some frank stuff about depression and the appeal of escape through drugs that I hadn't heard in a movie before, and there was a striking scene with a guy who looked like he'd just stepped out of a Michael Haneke movie that set up the idea of alternate realities and mysterious beings in the woods. Then the monster alien invisible-observer thing presented itself, and the ending turned out to be pretty great in a horror/sci fi way.
Zahn played a loiterer / casino security staff / landlord of the aforementioned one-room house. He didn't do much, and then he died, along with a lot of other characters. But it was nice to see him there.
Awful Nice (2013)
The only thing worse than skimming a bad movie to find the one scene with Zahn McClarnon is skimming a bad movie only to discover that despite being credited on IMDB with an actual character name and everything, Zahn McClarnon did not appear in the final cut.
Meanwhile, two "adult" brothers fight a lot and get into trouble in Vegas.
I'm in Love with a Church Girl (2013)
One scene, no lines. He got dragged out of a car and threatened. If there was more, I missed it on fast-forward.
"Based on a true story" about a drug lord (Ja Rule) who reformed when he fell for a woman of faith. Its heart was in the right place but it could have used a decent dialogue writer.
The opening credits listed God as a producer.
Halfway to Hell (2013)
A group of men and one woman recently released from prison try to reacclimate in a halfway house. Things… do not turn out well.
Zahn played a mechanic-slash-drug dealer whom one of the ex-cons had not ratted out on his way to prison. Zahn had two scenes, both of which I enjoyed. He looked good with a braid and garage coverall and had a vibrant personality even though he was a rotten dude who knowingly gave out bad coke and was willing to kill a guy for annoying him even though he owed him his freedom. Plus, it was nice that ethnicity had nothing to do with the role and went unremarked upon.
Basketful of warnings, including pedophilia, terminal illness, throat cutting, drug overdose, arson, mugging—and that's just what I caught on fast-forward.
Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Two white thieves in frontier times* tromp across what looks like an Indian burial and/or religious site and get a bunch of arrows shot through them in retribution. Turns out the culprits are not Indians but mysterious, monstrous, white-painted superhumans called Troglodytes. The loosed Troglodytes swoop into town that night, kill the only black character around and kidnap a couple of people. One could accuse the filmmakers of indulging in savage-Indian stereotypes while claiming it's okay because they're not technically Indians, but it looked more like the filmmakers wanted to interrogate those stereotypes. They made a point of having one character (Zahn's) disavow all connection between the Troglodytes and the local Indian tribes and call out the white townsfolk for not being capable of telling the difference.
The sets and costumes were gorgeous in that dirty, sepia-soaked way, and the main cast included many recognizable actors, chief among them sheriff Kurt Russell, aging assistant Richard Jenkins, and Patrick Wilson, husband of the kidnapped medic lady and bearer of a splinted leg. Zahn played a character known only as "the professor." He got called into a meeting in the town saloon to tell the heroes who the Troglodytes were and where to find them. He wore an elegant suit and was given lines that allowed him to counter multiple anti-Indian sentiments in his brief appearance. ("I've killed more Indians than all of you," said one dude when listing his qualifications for joining the rescue party. "That's an ugly boast," said the professor, responding to him and to a million Westerns where such lines went—go?—unremarked upon.) ("Will you take us to [the Troglodytes]?" asked Patrick Wilson. "I won't," said the professor. "Because you won't betray your own kind?" "Because I don't want to get killed.")
Some reviewers say this was an outstanding modern Western and men-go-deeper-into-the-literal-and-metaphorical-darkness horror movie, so maybe I'll come back to it, but at the time I wasn't in the mood for all the gruff male musing and posturing, and I turned off the movie soon after the saloon scene when I learned Zahn wouldn't be back. For now, I'm happy with that decision; I saw some pictures of a gruesome death that happened later on. What did the Troglodytes ultimately symbolize, and was their creation justified? TBD.
*see above
Braven (2018) ♥
A Jason Momoa action movie about a loving rural family pitted against violent urban drug traffickers in and around the family's cabin in the winter woods. Pretty good for a template-y, semi-vanity project. I watched it straight through, which is more than I can say for all of the aforementioned movies except maybe Resolution. It had that nice theme where the good-hearted underdogs gain the upper hand because they know their home territory better than their well-equipped adversaries. And the adversaries were written as plenty smart and competent.
Braven was filmed in Newfoundland, and the scenery was accordingly lovely. Good acting as well, including Joe Braven (Momoa)'s dad (Stephen Lang), who drifted in and out of senility. I liked watching Garret Dillahunt's face as the main villain, and discovered I have consistent taste when I looked him up and realized I'd also liked him in the Last House on the Left remake. Some good stakeouts and chases, opportunities for the wife and daughter to hold their own, and a fun fight scene involving a bear trap.
Zahn played one of the drug runners. He said "fuck" and "motherfucker" a lot. He wore a hooded coat and had a big enough role that he merited his own special sticky ending. I had a good time.
Here, this two-and-a-half-minute trailer covers most of the movie. Warning: several graphic deaths.
No fics planned for any of these, although some should be useful for a vid idea I'm noodling around with.
While I'm not expecting to be a completist about his film catalogue, there are five or six more movies I'd like to check out, including Mekko whenever it becomes available.
Spoilers for most of these. ♥ for the ones I'm glad to have seen.
Searchers 2.0 (2007) ♥
A shoestring-budget, absurdist road trip movie about two washed-up actors determined to hunt down an old movie director who mistreated them on set when they were young. Directed by Alex Cox, who seems to like casting Zahn McClarnon in oddball supporting roles; no complaints from me.
This movie probably had some stuff to say about Western film stereotypes and whitewashing of Native roles and Hollywood hypocrisy and the sacrifices people make in the name of moviemaking, but I skimmed too much to find out. The humor was not my humor, the acting (deliberately?) awkward, the pacing too slow.
ZAHN FACTOR
Zahn cut off all his hair after filming Into the West. Searchers 2.0 came a couple of years after that, so it had only grown out to his shoulders. Super cute.
He showed up maybe half an hour in, playing a gas station employee, Rusty, who turned out to have been in one of the same movies as the co-star. He narrowed his eyes, got real close, and said the guy had such a good time bullying Rusty during production that Rusty quit acting. Then, being in a comedy, he listed a series of increasingly awful things that happened after he got home. The co-stars made a hasty getaway.
I thought that would be it, but then he reappeared in a dream sequence, wearing a golfing outfit complete with houndstooth cap and argyle sweater/socks, grinning and spouting nonsense about a mystical philosophy of nonviolence. A total delight. Here is the second half of the scene.
I thought that would be it, but then the co-stars ran out of gas again and returned to the station, where Rusty claimed no grudges and gave them a tip on where to find the guy they were after.
And then he showed up yet again toward the end, in his golfing outfit for real this time. Along with some cousins? uncles? in similar getups. His golf ball played a pivotal role in the plot.
CONCLUSION
In case that doesn't convey the WTFery that was this movie, consider this line from a memorial service for someone who turns out to not have been dead:
"There will come a time when all of us will be dust, nothing, less than zero. But you can be sure that somewhere, in some cave, the radioactive dregs of our descendants will be worshipping single 35-millimeter frames of Perseus vs. the Space Monsters featuring Fred Fletcher."
Yellow Rock (2011)
Blah blah some bounty hunter-type white men in the settlement days* go looking for a missing person and borrow
Zahn played a villager who translated for the visitors. He started out with a cringey accent but soon dropped it. He was present at a Standard Hollywood Indian Ceremony to send off Dr. Quinn and Michael Spears, then reappeared in the background to prep someone's horse for the journey. At the end, he sat bareback on a horse and looked solemn while the last bad guy got his comeuppance. I liked the three seconds when he nudged his horse forward. Graceful, and you could tell he actually had to guide it so it wouldn't bump into those around him.
*to use the settler term for it
Resolution (2012) semi-♥
Indie flick about a 30-something white dude who forces his 30-something white dude drug addict BFF to quit cold turkey in an abandoned one-room house in the kind of middle-of-nowhere indie-flick rural area where you run into one or two bizarre characters per day. Meanwhile, something spooky unfolds involving various bits of technology and an invisible observer.
Eye-rolly at the start, with way too much ~meta~ about ~storytelling~, but the BFF said some frank stuff about depression and the appeal of escape through drugs that I hadn't heard in a movie before, and there was a striking scene with a guy who looked like he'd just stepped out of a Michael Haneke movie that set up the idea of alternate realities and mysterious beings in the woods. Then the monster alien invisible-observer thing presented itself, and the ending turned out to be pretty great in a horror/sci fi way.
Zahn played a loiterer / casino security staff / landlord of the aforementioned one-room house. He didn't do much, and then he died, along with a lot of other characters. But it was nice to see him there.
Awful Nice (2013)
The only thing worse than skimming a bad movie to find the one scene with Zahn McClarnon is skimming a bad movie only to discover that despite being credited on IMDB with an actual character name and everything, Zahn McClarnon did not appear in the final cut.
Meanwhile, two "adult" brothers fight a lot and get into trouble in Vegas.
I'm in Love with a Church Girl (2013)
One scene, no lines. He got dragged out of a car and threatened. If there was more, I missed it on fast-forward.
"Based on a true story" about a drug lord (Ja Rule) who reformed when he fell for a woman of faith. Its heart was in the right place but it could have used a decent dialogue writer.
The opening credits listed God as a producer.
Halfway to Hell (2013)
A group of men and one woman recently released from prison try to reacclimate in a halfway house. Things… do not turn out well.
Zahn played a mechanic-slash-drug dealer whom one of the ex-cons had not ratted out on his way to prison. Zahn had two scenes, both of which I enjoyed. He looked good with a braid and garage coverall and had a vibrant personality even though he was a rotten dude who knowingly gave out bad coke and was willing to kill a guy for annoying him even though he owed him his freedom. Plus, it was nice that ethnicity had nothing to do with the role and went unremarked upon.
Basketful of warnings, including pedophilia, terminal illness, throat cutting, drug overdose, arson, mugging—and that's just what I caught on fast-forward.
Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Two white thieves in frontier times* tromp across what looks like an Indian burial and/or religious site and get a bunch of arrows shot through them in retribution. Turns out the culprits are not Indians but mysterious, monstrous, white-painted superhumans called Troglodytes. The loosed Troglodytes swoop into town that night, kill the only black character around and kidnap a couple of people. One could accuse the filmmakers of indulging in savage-Indian stereotypes while claiming it's okay because they're not technically Indians, but it looked more like the filmmakers wanted to interrogate those stereotypes. They made a point of having one character (Zahn's) disavow all connection between the Troglodytes and the local Indian tribes and call out the white townsfolk for not being capable of telling the difference.
The sets and costumes were gorgeous in that dirty, sepia-soaked way, and the main cast included many recognizable actors, chief among them sheriff Kurt Russell, aging assistant Richard Jenkins, and Patrick Wilson, husband of the kidnapped medic lady and bearer of a splinted leg. Zahn played a character known only as "the professor." He got called into a meeting in the town saloon to tell the heroes who the Troglodytes were and where to find them. He wore an elegant suit and was given lines that allowed him to counter multiple anti-Indian sentiments in his brief appearance. ("I've killed more Indians than all of you," said one dude when listing his qualifications for joining the rescue party. "That's an ugly boast," said the professor, responding to him and to a million Westerns where such lines went—go?—unremarked upon.) ("Will you take us to [the Troglodytes]?" asked Patrick Wilson. "I won't," said the professor. "Because you won't betray your own kind?" "Because I don't want to get killed.")
Some reviewers say this was an outstanding modern Western and men-go-deeper-into-the-literal-and-metaphorical-darkness horror movie, so maybe I'll come back to it, but at the time I wasn't in the mood for all the gruff male musing and posturing, and I turned off the movie soon after the saloon scene when I learned Zahn wouldn't be back. For now, I'm happy with that decision; I saw some pictures of a gruesome death that happened later on. What did the Troglodytes ultimately symbolize, and was their creation justified? TBD.
*see above
Braven (2018) ♥
A Jason Momoa action movie about a loving rural family pitted against violent urban drug traffickers in and around the family's cabin in the winter woods. Pretty good for a template-y, semi-vanity project. I watched it straight through, which is more than I can say for all of the aforementioned movies except maybe Resolution. It had that nice theme where the good-hearted underdogs gain the upper hand because they know their home territory better than their well-equipped adversaries. And the adversaries were written as plenty smart and competent.
Braven was filmed in Newfoundland, and the scenery was accordingly lovely. Good acting as well, including Joe Braven (Momoa)'s dad (Stephen Lang), who drifted in and out of senility. I liked watching Garret Dillahunt's face as the main villain, and discovered I have consistent taste when I looked him up and realized I'd also liked him in the Last House on the Left remake. Some good stakeouts and chases, opportunities for the wife and daughter to hold their own, and a fun fight scene involving a bear trap.
Zahn played one of the drug runners. He said "fuck" and "motherfucker" a lot. He wore a hooded coat and had a big enough role that he merited his own special sticky ending. I had a good time.
Here, this two-and-a-half-minute trailer covers most of the movie. Warning: several graphic deaths.
No fics planned for any of these, although some should be useful for a vid idea I'm noodling around with.
While I'm not expecting to be a completist about his film catalogue, there are five or six more movies I'd like to check out, including Mekko whenever it becomes available.
