“Who’s in the house? Stiglitz’s in the house.”
Repeat four times.
This is a song that I wrote.
Enjoy.
El vibora (2002)
In El vibora
(2002) (the IMdB lists the film possibly as Matar
para vivir (2002)), Stiglitz gets second billing with his named spelled
correctly in the credits with “Stieglitz” on the DVD cover. It has been well over a week since I have
seen the film, but I remember the simple plot as such: in Mexico, an anti-terrorist police force
nabs a terrorist who runs the nerve center of the terrorist cell. They hold him indefinitely and use various
methods to extract information from him with little gain. Stiglitz is the head of the terrorist cell
and lives in Houston, Texas. When he
learns that his compadre has been captured, he arrives in Mexico to either free
him or kill him. Both sides attempt to
gain information about the other with little success. Stiglitz has a meeting with one of his
partners at a bar, and the two have a conversation, relating important
information, in front of a shoeshine boy.
This boy has a fortuitous run-in with the lead officer of the
anti-terrorist squad which leads to a fateful confrontation with Stiglitz. Three scenes stand out:
1.
Upon arrival in Mexico, Stiglitz meets his
compatriots at a bar, and they discuss their plan. Each is served a cold bottle of Corona
beer. The meeting is short, so when it
concludes, each leaves a bottle of beer in front of him, half- to
three-quarters full. Stiglitz takes his
beer with him.
2.
Two police officers raid a karate dojo and nab a
potential suspect. After some
questioning, the police realize that he is not a suspect and attempt to
apologize and leave. The sensei of the
dojo challenges the two officers with his best two students. One of the police officers wins his
competition with martial arts. The other
ends his sparring match by pulling his gun.
Definitely not “the way of the empty fist.”
3.
Before the fateful confrontation with the
anti-terrorist squad, one of Stiglitz’s henchmen gets cold feet and attempts to
flee. Stiglitz guns him down. About to put a gun down the front of his
pants with a hot barrel, Stiglitz opts not to.
Instead he smells the barrel and shows no emotion.
El vibora is
average. I have never been too fond of
political thrillers, so I am really not this film’s proper audience. The film is a game of one-upsmanship with a
lot of talky bits. Its Stiglitz-tude is
lacking.
Un hombre salvaje
(1993)
In Un hombre salvaje
(1993), a large, good-looking man is engaged in martial arts sparring at a
local gym. He goes too far and attacks
his opponent violently. His good-looking
girlfriend appears at the gym (she is a dancer) and chides him for his violent
behavior. Back at their apartment, their
rent-to-own furniture is about to be seized.
The large, good-looking man, who is later revealed to be a cop, borrows
some money from his homey who runs an appliance repair shop. When negotiations fail with the repo men
outside of his apartment, the cop takes to violent action and starts beating
the men. His girlfriend steps in and
stops them. They take away their color
television. The cop returns to his homey
to give him the money that he borrowed, but Stiglitz shows up as a crime
boss. (He is dressed with an overcoat
around his shoulders with a cigar in his mouth.
This is the attire of a crime boss.)
One of Stiglitz’s cronies subdues the cop, and Stiglitz ices the
appliance repair shop owner. Stiglitz’s
character is engaged in shaking people down and drug trafficking. He is fourth billed in this picture. The cop takes to the streets, determined to
bring Stiglitz down for icing his homey.
Unfortunately, his aggressive, violent actions may be his own undoing.
Average, Un hombre
salvaje is. The final confrontation
in a warehouse with Stiglitz is the highlight.
The weirdest scene entails a small party where three men are drinking
with three women. One of the men beats
upon his date and drags her into the bedroom where he intends to rape the
woman. The two remaining men in the
living room remain cool, but one of the other ladies excuses herself to the
bathroom where she calls the police. The
violent cop arrives with two partners.
While agonizing screams are heard inside, they take the time to form a
plan. The lead cop, going against the
plan, busts through the front door. He
has a fight with the would-be rapist and kills him. Problem solved? No. He
apparently is not supposed to kill suspects in the act of rape whom attack
him. The cop does not ask to see the
manual. Stiglitz wears a fedora and a
vest for the majority of the film and chews a cigar. He becomes animated during the final-act
gunfight.
Cabaret mortal
(1998)
Cabaret mortal
(1998) is by far the weirdest film of this three. Stiglitz is top-billed with his name spelled
“Stiglits” in the opening credits. A
dude owns a bar. It is a happening
place: live music, dancing, an occasional
erotic dance, and general comradery. He
employs some extraordinarily gorgeous women to work as hostesses. He sleeps with them, too, and showers them
with flatteries but one at a time. In
the opening sequence of the film, a hooligan accosts the bar owner and makes
moves towards his hostess. He challenges
the bar owner to a fight, whereupon the hooligan kicks his ass, pretty
bad. He kidnaps the hostess. The following morning, the bar owner finds
his hostess and the hooligan. The bar
owner kills the hooligan in a knife fight.
He takes the hostess home and sleeps with her. The following evening, the bar owner picks a
new girl upon whom to shower flatteries and with whom to sleep. Apparently, the ladies are quite competitive
as to whom is going to be “top girl.”
One day, a good-looking transient appears at the bar and asks for a
job. The bar owner gives him a job as a
doorman. Enter Stiglitz. He is a douchebag who is forcing the bar
owner to use his club as a front for drug trafficking. Now let us let go of conventional reality for
the remainder of this synopsis. The
doorman convinces the bar owner at the next drug exchange in which he is
involved to turn the tables against Stiglitz and company. They engage in a gunfight whereupon all the
thugs are killed. The bar owner is most
impressed, and the doorman and bar owner form a strong bond. In the subsequent scene, the two engage in
the most homoerotic knife-fight sparring scene that I have ever seen. Granted, this is the only knife-fight
sparring scene that I have seen, but I feel all future ones will be judged against
it. The doorman is given nice clothes
and money and is no longer forced to serve as doorman. Remember the original lady who was kidnapped
by the hooligan and later rebuffed by the bar owner? Now, jealous that the bar owner is engaged
with another lady, she begins a fight on the dance floor. The bar owner smacks her around, and the
former doorman steps in to rescue her.
The bar owner is pissed, and the former doorman escorts the lady home. They sleep together. In the final scene of Cabaret mortal, the bar owner and the former doorman have a
slow-motion knife fight which ends with one or both dying. On the dance floor. Remember Stiglitz? His plotline ends unresolved.
Cabaret mortal
takes a while to get cooking but once it does, its weirdness overshadows the
lack of Stiglitz. There is a
wholesomeness to the live music/dancing scenes, as if everyone is having fun in
a family-friendly manner. It is almost
as if I could ask out the pretty girl at church for a date there, for dancing
and to drink soda. However, if I were to
take her on the night that the exotic dancer occupied the dance floor, then she
might be offended and get the wrong idea while the exotic dancer gyrated and
caused all of the blood to rush into men’s crotches. What if we showed up on the night of the
slow-motion knife fight? Stiglitz,
finally, for the record, misses all of these scenes.
