Strange Days #30
March 2026 | Up Against It
Over the past few years, my film viewing has become increasingly scattershot. I don’t have as much time to sit and watch movies as I used to, so whenever I watch anything now it’s usually just because I’m in the mood to watch it, rather than as part of any specific cinephilic research project or anything like that. This month, however, I found myself with a few empty days to myself, and, instead of embracing variety, I chose to fill that time with a half-dozen gritty, sweaty old movies about violence in America. I have no idea why this hyper-specific niche was calling out to me so loudly. Nor do I know why I felt such a need to focus my viewing habits so extremely. But I did. And I’m glad I did, because I ended up watching a lot of very good movies, even if they were all fairly similar.
The first thing I watched was Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), starring Walter Matthau as a transit cop dealing with the hijacking of a New York City subway train. Sargent goes to great lengths to show the scale of the operation required to deal with such a situation, with layers and layers of bureaucracy passing through walkie-talkies across the city and slowing the response to a frustrating crawl, all while the pressure ramps up and the time ticks closer to oblivion. It’s amazing how much of this tension stems from two sets of highly-skilled professionals doing good work, each trying to out-think and out-manoeuvre the other and find a clear route out as cleanly and as quickly as possible.
Another great movie starring Matthau, Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick (1973) follows a small-time bank robber who stumbles upon significantly more money than he was expecting during a heist, and is forced to improvise an escape plan when a hitman is sent to hunt him down and reclaim it. In much the same way as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, this is a film about professional competence on both sides, with this hitman quickly and skillfully picking up the scent of a man with the foresight to know he’s leaving a trail. So while it may seem as if Varrick is making mistakes, with Siegel showing him moving around town, speaking to people, and doing things that don’t really make a lot of sense for a man in his position, he’s working on the assumption that he’s read the situation better than everyone else. He’s one step ahead of everyone. More prepared, more tenacious, and so far more likely to get out alive. A fascinating, thrilling film, and one that has immediately become a favourite. Highly recommended.
I didn’t have quite as much affection for the rest of what I saw, but all of these films are worth watching for one reason or another. I’d never seen Ted Kotcheff’s First Blood (1982) before this month, and I’m glad I changed that. The first half is phenomenal, with a highly-trained soldier just back from Vietnam fighting back against the cackling policemen who decide to brutalise him for sport. But as soon as the reinforcements were called in, brandishing rocket-launchers and endlessly pursuing this man through a forest, I started to lose interest. Elsewhere, in Peter Hyams’ Busting (1974), two downtrodden vice-cops in Los Angeles bang their heads against red-tape and corruption as they desperately try to take down a mob boss. The camera glides around all over the place, giving the film an air of constant movement and dazzling energy, only none of this momentum amounts to anything. It all just looks and feels like police work, but nothing ever changes. And in John Flynn’s The Outfit (1973), a man just out of prison takes on the Mafia to try to avenge the murder of his brother. A film filled with gambling, be it roulette wheels or card games, racehorses or pinball machines, in which revenge is just another hand, another spin, another race, another part of an unfulfilling game that never ends, one that resets over and over again until there’s nobody left to play with.
As I said, all worth watching. But the one I’m most keen to recommend is Phil Karlson’s Framed (1975), starring the great Joe Don Baker as a semi-professional gambler who accidentally falls into a web of murder and corruption. On his eventual release from prison he sets out to right the wrongs that were done to him, whatever the cost. I’m not familiar with Karlson, but his reputation for making gritty, nasty films about individuals contending with violent worlds seems well earned. And among its many virtues, Framed features one of the most spectacular stunts I think I’ve ever seen, and one that I cannot believe did not cause the death of a stuntman. It’s here, if you’re interested, but I’d recommend watching the film in its entirety, too. They really don’t make ‘em like they used to.
On the absolute opposite end of the spectrum, and perhaps as a means of escaping the dour vibes of all of these films, I’ve put quite a bit of time into Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (2003) this month, a GameBoy Advance RPG that I’ve been wanting to play for the best part of two decades. I’m about ten hours in so far and, on balance, I think it was worth the wait. A vibrant and funny game, with a tongue-in-cheek plot about a kidnapping and a variety of weird characters to speak to. As an RPG, it’s pretty standard, with the goal of moving from place to place, fighting stronger enemies as you go and collecting various objects before fighting a boss. The battling itself is quick and fun, with simple movesets and a system reliant on timing and dodges, keeping everything active. And the numbers are satisfyingly low. In something like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025), you’re regularly dealing 9,999 points of damage, and it’s impossible to keep up with the maths of what’s going on. Here, and in all the Mario RPGs I’ve played, the maximum I’m dishing out is about fifteen or twenty, which is a lot easier to keep track of.
But while battling is incredibly fun, I’m finding the platforming elements a little tricky to get the hang of. You control Mario and Luigi at the same time, with both having a different skill set to utilise in the overworld. Mario can glide over small gaps by spinning like a helicopter, and can be shrunk with the hammer to fit through tiny gaps that are otherwise impossible to navigate. Luigi can jump up to high ledges and be hammered into the ground like a mole, allowing him to pass underneath locked gates. You have to constantly switch between the two of them to solve puzzles with their respective abilities.
I’ve just made it to a section in which you have to fill Mario up with water from a fountain, and have Luigi hit him on the head with a hammer to spray it over long distances. You have to point the water-inflated Mario at some robotic mice on the other side of an impossible to reach platform, hit him with the hammer as Luigi, and time your sprays so they push the mice into the gaps of a broken electrical circuit, reconnecting the power to an electric door. There are three mice to manoeuvre into the right place in the circuit, all of which move at different speeds and trajectories, and you have five attempts to line them all up. If you can do it, the door to the next section opens. But if you can’t, the whole thing resets and you have to start all over again. Superstar Saga is riddled with simple but finicky challenges like this one. It’s easy to work out what to do, and they’re short enough so as not to cause too many problems. I’m just not very good at them, and it holds me back from the parts of the game that I enjoy. I’m hoping as I get further through the game I’ll be better equipped to deal with stuff like this, or, even better, that there’s just less of it to have to deal with. Either way, I’m not done with it just yet.
Speak soon,
Matt