Chattanooga Film Festival 2017: Hard Times

Once again, I was able to return to the Chattanooga Film Festival with Mass Listeria!  I love cinema in all of its forms, so the Chattanooga Film Festival is one of my favorite times of year because I spend four days being surrounded by movies and fellow film lovers!  To get a sense of why I love the Chattanooga Film Festival so much, read my post from the start of my coverage of the 2016 Chattanooga Film Festival (found here)...every word of it still holds true!

We already did an overview episode on Mass Listeria (found at masslisteriapodcast.com), but for the next several episodes of The Gargyle Podcast, I'll be providing reviews of each of the films that I saw individually.  Up next in my coverage of the 2017 Chattanooga Film Festival is:  Hard Times

I'll be providing the description of the films provided in the Chattanooga Film Festival program and trailers via YouTube, when available.  The descriptions and trailers of the movies might let you know what they are about, but if you want to know what I thought of them...well, you are just going to have to give the podcast a listen.

The CFF program description for Hard Times was:

No one in their right mind would deny that the ultimate human was Charles Bronson, a primal force of detached anger, burning vengeance, and near-toxic levels of masculinity.  But he had this thing about faces:  He loved to destroy them.  Across the best cinematic decades of the 20th century, Bronson ruined more faces than a busload of cross-eyed plastic surgeons on meth.  Facial annihilation was Bronson's gift and the world's curse.  In 1975, first-time director Walter Hill (The Warrior, Southern Comfort) convinced him to set aside his signature face-wrecking firearms for plain old bare knuckles, an arguably humane move that resulted in one of the icon's greatest - and most under-appreciated - action epics.  In the train yards and back alleys of Louisiana, a leather-skinned, unstoppable transient (Bronson, of course) makes a meager living by beating other hobos to a pulp in makeshift boxing matches.  James Coburn plays his flashy manager Speed, accompanied by an incredible performance by southern legend Strother Martin as the lovably self-destructive Doc Poe.  Hard Times is a massively entertaining, charmingly brutal exploration of mankind's desire to triumph at the animal level.  Packed with busted lips, shattered dreams and an impossible amount of vicious, no-rules shirtlessness, this is not only one of the best movies of the 1970s, but it's a genuine, no-bullshit, straight-up blue collar masterpiece.



I saw 21 feature films, short films, partial films, or live shows during the Chattanooga Film Festival!  So, be sure to check back soon for more of my CFF coverage!  And if you enjoy movies, conventions, comics, games, cartoons, Star Wars, horror, or just about anything geeky...be sure to keep coming back for all things geekery!!  In the meantime, follow me here, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube and be sure to subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and/or Google Play for more geek coverage!

music for The Gargyle Podcast by Bensound