Cinema Report: Romero's Best Film

Well, maybe. It's either this or Dawn of the Dead. Anyway, it's my favorite Romero film. Will, it's either this or Dawn.

So, did up an ASL for Knightriders, Romero's kind of odd, kind of beautiful knights-on-motorcycles epic.

Yes, it's knights...


... on motorcycles:


To repeat that: Knights!


On motorcycles!


And at 2 hours and 25 minutes, it's epic.

It's kind of crazy, but also kind of, I dunno, parts of it always get to me. Might be one of those things you had to see at the right age, I dunno. I wouldn't want to oversell it, but it's doing its thing and it's... One of Romero's things is he comes up with an idea and he runs with it as far as he can go. This is one of those movies where he does that.

So, here's the stats:

Average shot length: 3 seconds
Length of the film: 146 minutes 7.9 seconds
Number of shots: 2901
Standard deviation: 4 seconds



I included the 2 1/2 minute closing credits shot, and wasn't able to grab the white flashes (2 to 4 frames) from the opening sequence. Full details, as usual, are here.

Again, a bit of the fast side, in terms of editing. Started poking through Day of the Dead the other day, and it's looking much slower. And Romero's Martin, made just before Dawn, came in at an average shot length of 4 seconds for 1425 shots, with a standard deviation of 3.9 seconds, and looked something like this:



Anyhoo, check out Knightriders if you haven't seen it, and want to see a young Ed Harris as a modern day King Arthur (or King Billy here) in an idealized clash of idealism with reality, or something like that:



It's also worth checking out for Tom Savini's great performance as Billy's nemesis, Morgan. Really, the man is spot on in his performance. He has some nice scenes and good chemistry with love interest and chief mechanic Angie, played by Christine Forrest (also Romero's wife):


Also present are a young Pat Tallman (of B5 fame)...


... and a guy named Brother Blue as Merlin:


One other thing that makes the film great, if you're a Romero fan, and if you've watched his films from the seventies, are the various familiar faces that pop up in the cast.


Back in the day, Romero didn't really have a repertory company of actors like some directors, but watching this film makes it feel like he did. And given that the film's about banding together as a family through thick and thin, their presence resonates with the film, and makes the community depicted on the screen seem a bit more organic and real. At least, it does to me.

So in addition to Savini...


... and Christine Forrest (Christina in Martin, and a cameo in Dawn)...


... you get Ken Foree (R)...

... and Scott Reineger from Dawn...


... Harold Jones, Clank from The Crazies...


... Antone Dileo (L) who'd go on to play Miguel in Day of the Dead, and James Baffico (R), from Dawn...

Note: It's Dileo, as Miguel, in the opening of Day, who does that "Hellooo.... Is there anybody out there? Hellooo.... Is there anybody out there" thing that was sampled on, I think, a Gorillaz album.)
(Edit: At least, I think that's Dileo in the above picture. Now I'm not so sure. Hm. He's listed in the credits on imdb, though.)

... John Amplas, Martin himself (also later appearing in Day)...


... and other familiar faces that pop up here and there. Even the cigarette dude from Dawn:


It's also worth checking out for the score by Donald Rubinstein, who plays the lead minstrel:


Knightriders also has one of my 10 favorite scenes, which I'll maybe save for a later post. And it has some great moments like this:









And to close out, my favorite shot in the film, and again, not to hyperbolize, but one of my all time favorite shots, period:


Okay. That is all of that.