A Cat In The Brain (1990)
Lucio Fulci's 1990 is an odd one, to say the least. Let me start out by saying I have this weird thing about Italian horror and giallo movies. I LOVE the genre, but most of the movies end up only being liked but not loved, by me. But some of watching movies for me isn't about just the overall enjoyment of a movie, but the journey as well. Of course, I would prefer the movies to blow me away, but that's an unrealistic expectation. So although I do not specifically love any Fulci films off the top of my head, this one, as horrible as it is, was completely enjoyable!
So about this odd film of his. Not only does Fulci direct this film, he also stars in it! He plays, of all things, Lucio Fulci, a horror film director, who is directing a new movie. While he is doing this, the scenes he has made for previous movies keep popping into his head and causing him distress. Supposedly this is based on his real life, though I doubt it a bit. Since the scenes he keeps reliving are actual scenes from his older movies, it would probably have been more boring had I seen a few of those older movies, but they were some of his last and I missed all those so far. So Fulci, as the character, goes to see a psychiatrist, who decides to use this to his advantage and frame Fulci for some murders he wants to commit.
The effects are pretty bad, as they can be in some Fulci films, and the story is silly and insane. But all the Fulci style is there, even though it is way past his prime. The acting and storyline are pretty weak, but fun and a bit over the top. Fulci is by no means an actor, but seeing the man himself attempt this is pretty impressive. The budget on this was like $100,000, which is nothing, but the entertainment value is huge. Now, I realize that my take on this movie is way different than most, so do not watch this thinking it is some amazing movie, it is not. But personally I loved it!
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Metrograph, theater 2, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 23rd, 2016 at 10:30 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : Decent crowd, about 30
Saturday, July 30, 2016
The Wild Eye (1967)
The Wild Eye (1967)
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
This was a mondo related title I had never heard of, and I am so happy I got the chance to see this one. The co-director of Mondo Cane co-directed this title as well, and it is a scathing satire on the mondo movie craze. It seems like he was not too fond of his old co-director and how he made his movies, so he made one that basically shows how they were done. So even though this is not a mondo movie, it is basically a tutorial on how they were made, with a lot of satire, dark humor, and hate thrown in for good measure.
The plot isn't very complicated, but it is exceedingly effective. A jeep is running through the desert chasing an animal, in the hopes of shooting it on cam for a mondo style documentary. One of the passengers protests and stops the car. The animal runs off and when they try to drive back, the jeep won't start. They walk and walk in the desert for a couple days, all thinking they might die, while the cameraman keeps rolling just in case. As the director is interviewing the passengers for their last thoughts before they die, someone comes and rescues them. Amazing? Nope, completely planned, but only known by the director and cameraman. Of course the passengers figure it out at that moment, but by then he has his shots.
The director decides he must use the girl passenger or the rest of the movie, to play the innocent that reacts to the horrors of the rel world. He goes off to pursue her, even though she is married. Somehow, by being a sexist pig and treating her like crap, he convinces her to leave her husband to come with him. At this point the movie was already amazing, and if it ended there I would have felt like this was money well spent. But it goes on! He takes her with him while filming horrific things, all the while she is freaking out. Half the stuff he is shooting is staged, or partially staged. He takes a small idea and runs with it, and if people are unwilling, he just pays them more money.
The plot continues in this fashion, and any more info would spoil the ridiculousness and insanity that abounds. Needless to say, they end up in Vietnam, and things start to get real, or as real as a mondo production can get. The amount of fake violence, staged scenes, semi-realistic romance, and blatant sexism is pretty amazing. I am shocked this is not on the feminists most hated list.
The film is shot just like a mondo film, but you see it as if you were behind the scenes of a mondo film. It is of course shot beautifully, the music is wonderful as always, and the situations are insane and a bit frightening. But the fact that this movie is a big fuck you to the other director of Mondo Cane is hysterical. I am not sure why this is not a classic in and of itself.
I was actually in awe throughout much of this film, and after I felt like I saw something that was much more special than most movies I see. I do not get that feeling often. I seriously feel honored that I got to see this film in this series.
8 out of 10 stars (might be upped to 9 on further viewings).
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 6:15 PM
Format : 35mm
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
This was a mondo related title I had never heard of, and I am so happy I got the chance to see this one. The co-director of Mondo Cane co-directed this title as well, and it is a scathing satire on the mondo movie craze. It seems like he was not too fond of his old co-director and how he made his movies, so he made one that basically shows how they were done. So even though this is not a mondo movie, it is basically a tutorial on how they were made, with a lot of satire, dark humor, and hate thrown in for good measure.
The plot isn't very complicated, but it is exceedingly effective. A jeep is running through the desert chasing an animal, in the hopes of shooting it on cam for a mondo style documentary. One of the passengers protests and stops the car. The animal runs off and when they try to drive back, the jeep won't start. They walk and walk in the desert for a couple days, all thinking they might die, while the cameraman keeps rolling just in case. As the director is interviewing the passengers for their last thoughts before they die, someone comes and rescues them. Amazing? Nope, completely planned, but only known by the director and cameraman. Of course the passengers figure it out at that moment, but by then he has his shots.
The director decides he must use the girl passenger or the rest of the movie, to play the innocent that reacts to the horrors of the rel world. He goes off to pursue her, even though she is married. Somehow, by being a sexist pig and treating her like crap, he convinces her to leave her husband to come with him. At this point the movie was already amazing, and if it ended there I would have felt like this was money well spent. But it goes on! He takes her with him while filming horrific things, all the while she is freaking out. Half the stuff he is shooting is staged, or partially staged. He takes a small idea and runs with it, and if people are unwilling, he just pays them more money.
The plot continues in this fashion, and any more info would spoil the ridiculousness and insanity that abounds. Needless to say, they end up in Vietnam, and things start to get real, or as real as a mondo production can get. The amount of fake violence, staged scenes, semi-realistic romance, and blatant sexism is pretty amazing. I am shocked this is not on the feminists most hated list.
The film is shot just like a mondo film, but you see it as if you were behind the scenes of a mondo film. It is of course shot beautifully, the music is wonderful as always, and the situations are insane and a bit frightening. But the fact that this movie is a big fuck you to the other director of Mondo Cane is hysterical. I am not sure why this is not a classic in and of itself.
I was actually in awe throughout much of this film, and after I felt like I saw something that was much more special than most movies I see. I do not get that feeling often. I seriously feel honored that I got to see this film in this series.
8 out of 10 stars (might be upped to 9 on further viewings).
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 6:15 PM
Format : 35mm
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50
Friday, July 29, 2016
Goodbye Uncle Tom (1971)
Goodbye Uncle Tom (1971)
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
In 1966 the two directors of this film were accused of making a racist film with their mondo movie Africa Blood And Guts. This 1971 film of theirs seems to be a big FUCK YOU to anyone who said that. This is one of the most racist films ever made, making Django Unchained look like a Disney film. It is also a masterpiece. You see, you cannot make an effective movie about slavery and the slave trade without showing racism. And it cannot be some white washed (pun intended) version of racism, where someone says a few racist words here and there. It has to be full on 100% off the chart racism. The kind that existed when blacks were literally thought of as property, and even worse, like animals.
According to the film makers, the scenes in this film were based on slave's diaries and journals kept while they were slaves, describing the condition they lived in and how they were treated. I cannot be sure that is true, but nothing I saw in this movie would surprise me if I found out that it all did really happen. All I need to think of is how people treat their animals, even today. Many people think it's fine to abuse their animals, even their children for that matter. Imagine if they grew up believing that black people were not actual human, but were subhumans, worth as much or less than an animal? They would treat them terribly.
Now, this film shows horrible acts, brutal acts, things that make you feel bad inside. But that is the point, to show you what slaves went through, and how people acted towards them. Keep in mind, there is also a lot of dark humor in this film, sarcasm, and relative abuse as well, as these actors were not paid much and obviously were treated less than well. But not enjoying the film is like looking at the pyramids, also built by slaves, and not being able to recognize its beauty.
Purely focusing on the technical end, the movie looks amazing, depending on how you see it. I saw a faded 35mm print, but this is the second time I am seeing it, the first was a sparking new digital production that had amazing colors and was completely restored. Obviously this was lovingly made by people who knew how to shoot a film. Some of the shots are amazing, especially since some of them are filled with dozens to hundreds of people. The sound is great, and the music, although not exactly what you would think belongs in a movie like this, is EXACTLY what you wanted, whether you knew it or not.
Oh, one very important thing about this movie. It functions much like the episode of The Boondocks where the premise starts that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't die when he was shot, but was in a coma instead, and woke up in the present. The premise of this film is that there are movie cameras in that age and they are doing a documentary on slavery, one that is anti-slavery, to be precise. So they are there filming the slave trade from beginning to end.
By the way, there are multiple versions of this movie, so be very careful if you are buying one. There is an updated director's cut which supposedly cuts out some of the more violent things, but adds in more sexual things, while the American print I saw cut out a good chuck of the ending where it switches out to modern times, with a modern black man reading a Nat Turner book. I am pretty sure that Blue Underground has released a proper version of this film and that it is readily available.
All in all, no matter the way it was made, the reasons, or the intent of this movie from the beginning, what it has become in my eyes is a masterpiece of showing the world the horror of what was actually going on at a time when we did not have the ability to expose the horrors the way we can now.
9 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 6:15 PM
Format : 35mm, faded print
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, not sure how the audience felt, but one guy I know did not like it
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
In 1966 the two directors of this film were accused of making a racist film with their mondo movie Africa Blood And Guts. This 1971 film of theirs seems to be a big FUCK YOU to anyone who said that. This is one of the most racist films ever made, making Django Unchained look like a Disney film. It is also a masterpiece. You see, you cannot make an effective movie about slavery and the slave trade without showing racism. And it cannot be some white washed (pun intended) version of racism, where someone says a few racist words here and there. It has to be full on 100% off the chart racism. The kind that existed when blacks were literally thought of as property, and even worse, like animals.
According to the film makers, the scenes in this film were based on slave's diaries and journals kept while they were slaves, describing the condition they lived in and how they were treated. I cannot be sure that is true, but nothing I saw in this movie would surprise me if I found out that it all did really happen. All I need to think of is how people treat their animals, even today. Many people think it's fine to abuse their animals, even their children for that matter. Imagine if they grew up believing that black people were not actual human, but were subhumans, worth as much or less than an animal? They would treat them terribly.
Now, this film shows horrible acts, brutal acts, things that make you feel bad inside. But that is the point, to show you what slaves went through, and how people acted towards them. Keep in mind, there is also a lot of dark humor in this film, sarcasm, and relative abuse as well, as these actors were not paid much and obviously were treated less than well. But not enjoying the film is like looking at the pyramids, also built by slaves, and not being able to recognize its beauty.
Purely focusing on the technical end, the movie looks amazing, depending on how you see it. I saw a faded 35mm print, but this is the second time I am seeing it, the first was a sparking new digital production that had amazing colors and was completely restored. Obviously this was lovingly made by people who knew how to shoot a film. Some of the shots are amazing, especially since some of them are filled with dozens to hundreds of people. The sound is great, and the music, although not exactly what you would think belongs in a movie like this, is EXACTLY what you wanted, whether you knew it or not.
Oh, one very important thing about this movie. It functions much like the episode of The Boondocks where the premise starts that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't die when he was shot, but was in a coma instead, and woke up in the present. The premise of this film is that there are movie cameras in that age and they are doing a documentary on slavery, one that is anti-slavery, to be precise. So they are there filming the slave trade from beginning to end.
By the way, there are multiple versions of this movie, so be very careful if you are buying one. There is an updated director's cut which supposedly cuts out some of the more violent things, but adds in more sexual things, while the American print I saw cut out a good chuck of the ending where it switches out to modern times, with a modern black man reading a Nat Turner book. I am pretty sure that Blue Underground has released a proper version of this film and that it is readily available.
All in all, no matter the way it was made, the reasons, or the intent of this movie from the beginning, what it has become in my eyes is a masterpiece of showing the world the horror of what was actually going on at a time when we did not have the ability to expose the horrors the way we can now.
9 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 6:15 PM
Format : 35mm, faded print
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, not sure how the audience felt, but one guy I know did not like it
Savage Man Savage Beast (1975)
Savage Man Savage Beast (1975)
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Savage Man Savage Beast's focus is on hunting. Man on animal, animal on man, man on man and animal on animal. It travels all over the world to show us different scenes of brutality, and even a couple scenes of peace as well. It starts with a hunter chasing a stag in the hopes of killing him, and once the deed is done shifts over to some hippies who are protesting violence. The rest of the film is mostly the kind of stuff you see on National Geographic or some such channel, yet these films are older and a bit more random.
Obviously this is NOT a movie you want to see if you are the sensitive type. There is a fair amount of animal killing, both from humans and other animals, and some of it is pretty graphic. There is a fun segment of this film where one of the tribes fertilizes the earth by basically digging a hole and fucking it. Pretty interesting to watch, in a curious kinda way. Another segment on fox hunting is more modern, but still a bit primitive. The odd thing is that there is some parts about this segment which seem really fake, but some of these mondo films did add in fake scenes to draw in a bigger audience. The scenes of the lion attacks are also supposed to be faked, and this was later done in Faces Of Death as well.
The soundtrack of these movies usually include very lush, romantic instrumental tunes, very European sounding in nature. This one follows suit, but also adds in some more hippy and rock music to reflect the scenes that include the younger generation who are against violence against animals, while still eating meat.
While this film does have some amazing footage, it is uneven and seems a bit long. Had they cut out the faked footage and tightened this up a bit I think it would have been a much more effective movie. That being said, it was good, just did not rise to the level of some of the others I have seen in this series so far. I have at least 2 more that I have seen that I need to review, plus there are a least a couple more to see, so I will be reviewing almost the whole series, minus one or two movies. I hope I find at least one more gem in the series.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 8:45 PM
Format : 35mm, faded print
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Savage Man Savage Beast's focus is on hunting. Man on animal, animal on man, man on man and animal on animal. It travels all over the world to show us different scenes of brutality, and even a couple scenes of peace as well. It starts with a hunter chasing a stag in the hopes of killing him, and once the deed is done shifts over to some hippies who are protesting violence. The rest of the film is mostly the kind of stuff you see on National Geographic or some such channel, yet these films are older and a bit more random.
Obviously this is NOT a movie you want to see if you are the sensitive type. There is a fair amount of animal killing, both from humans and other animals, and some of it is pretty graphic. There is a fun segment of this film where one of the tribes fertilizes the earth by basically digging a hole and fucking it. Pretty interesting to watch, in a curious kinda way. Another segment on fox hunting is more modern, but still a bit primitive. The odd thing is that there is some parts about this segment which seem really fake, but some of these mondo films did add in fake scenes to draw in a bigger audience. The scenes of the lion attacks are also supposed to be faked, and this was later done in Faces Of Death as well.
The soundtrack of these movies usually include very lush, romantic instrumental tunes, very European sounding in nature. This one follows suit, but also adds in some more hippy and rock music to reflect the scenes that include the younger generation who are against violence against animals, while still eating meat.
While this film does have some amazing footage, it is uneven and seems a bit long. Had they cut out the faked footage and tightened this up a bit I think it would have been a much more effective movie. That being said, it was good, just did not rise to the level of some of the others I have seen in this series so far. I have at least 2 more that I have seen that I need to review, plus there are a least a couple more to see, so I will be reviewing almost the whole series, minus one or two movies. I hope I find at least one more gem in the series.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 8:45 PM
Format : 35mm, faded print
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Blood Of The Beasts (1949)
Blood Of The Beasts (1949)
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Blood Of The Beasts is a short that, for this series, preceded Savage Man, Savage Beast. It was a very early film, from 1949, and a very early example of ultrarealism, where a film is stark and to the point, showing all the unpleasant activities that come with the real world. Butchering is one of those things, and in this 22 minute short the camera does not shy away. The first minute of this short is taken up by the credits, and then the next minute and a half is filled with shots of the outskirts of Paris, some very obviously set up shots of things on the beach, a lamp hanging from a tree, a couple kissing. The music is light and fun, almost like cartoon music from the day. The music stops, the scene changes to trucks driving, and we get the first shot of the slaughterhouse. After showing us a few of the tools of the trade, a beautiful white horse is brought in walked calmly to a spot to stand in. One of the tools is a bear pistol, which has a captive bolt that is amazingly effective at taking a horse down with one shot to the head. By 4 minutes in, the killing has started.
I will forego any graphic details in regards to the slaughtering, skinning, and dismembering the animals, as it is unflinching in its view and severely graphic. Not in any exploitation kind of way, these animals are clearly not killed for fun, not tortured needlessly. This is a business, and the business is about how quickly they can slaughter and process the animals coming through the plant. In some ways, this seems way more humane than some of the footage I have seen of more modern plants, where it seems the animals might suffer more, but it is hard for me to say without knowing a lot more about the field.
As far as the film is concerned, it is beautifully shot and the camera is almost loving in its depiction of the slaughter, and never once do we feel like it is judging or trying to shock, the shock we feel is in ourselves, it is not being produced for us. I must say, to see that first horse fall to its knees immediately from a tool the size of my forearm was both shocking and impressive, but the rest of the slaughtering was only shocking for me in how quickly they could do it, and how intricate the work is. One particular scene which stood out was while they were skinning the horse, and explaining how sharp the knife is, and how dangerous the work can be. The guy who was doing the work so masterfully had once slipped and cut his femoral artery, and had to get his leg amputated. We next see him hobbling around on what is obviously a wooden "leg", more like what you see on a pirate in a cartoon. One of the butchers, maybe even that one, was a prize fighter at one point, the other had some other interesting job before as well. Shows you how different the world was back then, you cannot imagine a successful prize fighter working in a butcher shop nowadays.
They bring in animal after animal, showing you the differing methods of slaughtering them, and show you the different butchers at the plant, one of them is even a woman! They are calm, quiet, methodical in their work, and they seem cheerful and comfortable with themselves and what they do. The film does not judge, it just shows a regular work day at the plant. It makes some commentary about the fact that this is what it takes to bring meat to the markets for us to buy, so we do not have to kill ourselves, which has always been something that is always at the front of my brain. Being an animal lover and a life long meat eater, I have had to be aware that these two aspects of my life do not exactly agree with each other, but I feel admitting this fact is better than trying to pretend it does not exist.
For a short film about a slaughterhouse, it is very thorough and informative, and interesting to watch. That being said, this film is not only something I would not recommend to most people, I would even say this would seriously disturb many. For any particularly spoiled sheltered people, you may not want to watch this as you may never eat well again. For those of you that can handle reality, this film has more reality in its 22 minutes than most reality TV seasons.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 8:45 PM
Format : 16mm, in French with English subtitles
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, one woman left for a bit, and came back, but no real walk outs or people being horrified from what they saw, but this is NYC.
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Blood Of The Beasts is a short that, for this series, preceded Savage Man, Savage Beast. It was a very early film, from 1949, and a very early example of ultrarealism, where a film is stark and to the point, showing all the unpleasant activities that come with the real world. Butchering is one of those things, and in this 22 minute short the camera does not shy away. The first minute of this short is taken up by the credits, and then the next minute and a half is filled with shots of the outskirts of Paris, some very obviously set up shots of things on the beach, a lamp hanging from a tree, a couple kissing. The music is light and fun, almost like cartoon music from the day. The music stops, the scene changes to trucks driving, and we get the first shot of the slaughterhouse. After showing us a few of the tools of the trade, a beautiful white horse is brought in walked calmly to a spot to stand in. One of the tools is a bear pistol, which has a captive bolt that is amazingly effective at taking a horse down with one shot to the head. By 4 minutes in, the killing has started.
I will forego any graphic details in regards to the slaughtering, skinning, and dismembering the animals, as it is unflinching in its view and severely graphic. Not in any exploitation kind of way, these animals are clearly not killed for fun, not tortured needlessly. This is a business, and the business is about how quickly they can slaughter and process the animals coming through the plant. In some ways, this seems way more humane than some of the footage I have seen of more modern plants, where it seems the animals might suffer more, but it is hard for me to say without knowing a lot more about the field.
As far as the film is concerned, it is beautifully shot and the camera is almost loving in its depiction of the slaughter, and never once do we feel like it is judging or trying to shock, the shock we feel is in ourselves, it is not being produced for us. I must say, to see that first horse fall to its knees immediately from a tool the size of my forearm was both shocking and impressive, but the rest of the slaughtering was only shocking for me in how quickly they could do it, and how intricate the work is. One particular scene which stood out was while they were skinning the horse, and explaining how sharp the knife is, and how dangerous the work can be. The guy who was doing the work so masterfully had once slipped and cut his femoral artery, and had to get his leg amputated. We next see him hobbling around on what is obviously a wooden "leg", more like what you see on a pirate in a cartoon. One of the butchers, maybe even that one, was a prize fighter at one point, the other had some other interesting job before as well. Shows you how different the world was back then, you cannot imagine a successful prize fighter working in a butcher shop nowadays.
They bring in animal after animal, showing you the differing methods of slaughtering them, and show you the different butchers at the plant, one of them is even a woman! They are calm, quiet, methodical in their work, and they seem cheerful and comfortable with themselves and what they do. The film does not judge, it just shows a regular work day at the plant. It makes some commentary about the fact that this is what it takes to bring meat to the markets for us to buy, so we do not have to kill ourselves, which has always been something that is always at the front of my brain. Being an animal lover and a life long meat eater, I have had to be aware that these two aspects of my life do not exactly agree with each other, but I feel admitting this fact is better than trying to pretend it does not exist.
For a short film about a slaughterhouse, it is very thorough and informative, and interesting to watch. That being said, this film is not only something I would not recommend to most people, I would even say this would seriously disturb many. For any particularly spoiled sheltered people, you may not want to watch this as you may never eat well again. For those of you that can handle reality, this film has more reality in its 22 minutes than most reality TV seasons.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Sunday, July 24th, 2016 at 8:45 PM
Format : 16mm, in French with English subtitles
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, one woman left for a bit, and came back, but no real walk outs or people being horrified from what they saw, but this is NYC.
Sky Above And Mud Beneath aka Le Ciel Et La Boue (1961)
Sky Above And Mud Beneath aka Le Ciel Et La Boue (1961)
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Sky Above And Mud Beneath is another precursor to the Mondo film, but follows the same format that developed over time. Amazingly this won an Academy award for best documentary, something the other films that followed did not do. The basic premise of the film was for a documentary film crew to go to explore the uncharted wilderness of New Guinea, where they spent months traveling through the wilderness, meeting tribes who had rarely even seen other people, let alone white people, and trying to make it to the other side.
Watching a film like this can really do a number on your head. Realizing that just 55 years ago this whole area was virtually unexplored and unmapped is ridiculous, let alone the fact that there were major rivers not even named yet. The vastness of the country is astounding, the time they spent trying desperately to get across it for no reason other than to just do it seems insane, but the footage they captured is extraordinary. The fact that they were actually welcomed by some tribes seems insane, but from what it looks like this documentary, unlike many mondo films that succeeded it, seems to be on the up and up. The footage does not look like they were trying to make it seem worse, I am sure all their fears were founded. The fact that headhunters were commonplace there is enough to scare most people away. Add in the bugs, dangerous rivers, alligators, sharks, distrusting natives, malaria, and other diseases and you have a recipe for disaster, which shows in the film. At least 3 of the people were dead by the end of the production, and others had to be airlifted out so they could possibly survive. Food had to be pushed out of a small airplane that could not land most of the time they did this. Everything about what they did was dangerous.
I won't go into any more detail, but overall it is an astounding film to watch, even more so thinking about how primitive the world was in 1961 for white people, let alone the natives there. I have never appreciated my first world status more than while watching this amazing struggle to go from point A to point B. This was truly a treasure to watch, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to see it on the big screen.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Wednesday, July 27th, 2016 at 9 PM
Format : 35mm, English language version
Audience : Decent crowd, about 30 people, they seemed to enjoy it.
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Sky Above And Mud Beneath is another precursor to the Mondo film, but follows the same format that developed over time. Amazingly this won an Academy award for best documentary, something the other films that followed did not do. The basic premise of the film was for a documentary film crew to go to explore the uncharted wilderness of New Guinea, where they spent months traveling through the wilderness, meeting tribes who had rarely even seen other people, let alone white people, and trying to make it to the other side.
Watching a film like this can really do a number on your head. Realizing that just 55 years ago this whole area was virtually unexplored and unmapped is ridiculous, let alone the fact that there were major rivers not even named yet. The vastness of the country is astounding, the time they spent trying desperately to get across it for no reason other than to just do it seems insane, but the footage they captured is extraordinary. The fact that they were actually welcomed by some tribes seems insane, but from what it looks like this documentary, unlike many mondo films that succeeded it, seems to be on the up and up. The footage does not look like they were trying to make it seem worse, I am sure all their fears were founded. The fact that headhunters were commonplace there is enough to scare most people away. Add in the bugs, dangerous rivers, alligators, sharks, distrusting natives, malaria, and other diseases and you have a recipe for disaster, which shows in the film. At least 3 of the people were dead by the end of the production, and others had to be airlifted out so they could possibly survive. Food had to be pushed out of a small airplane that could not land most of the time they did this. Everything about what they did was dangerous.
I won't go into any more detail, but overall it is an astounding film to watch, even more so thinking about how primitive the world was in 1961 for white people, let alone the natives there. I have never appreciated my first world status more than while watching this amazing struggle to go from point A to point B. This was truly a treasure to watch, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to see it on the big screen.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Wednesday, July 27th, 2016 at 9 PM
Format : 35mm, English language version
Audience : Decent crowd, about 30 people, they seemed to enjoy it.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
The Mad Masters a/k/a Les Maîtres Fous (1955)
The Mad Masters a/k/a Les Maîtres Fous (1955)
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
The Mad Masters is a short film directed by Jean Rouch. It predates the Mondo thing by about 7 years, but it is the inspiration for the whole shockumentary thing. Now, please do not judge me on my history skills, this is not my area of expertise. But from what I can gather this short is about how the natives in a place called Accra, in Ghana, Africa dealt with their own issues and feeling about British colonialism in their area. You see, in 1927 the British came over to help advance the African people. While they brought over technology and a more "civilized" way of being, this clashed pretty hard with the African way of life. So they started a ceremony that was called the Hauka Movement. It was a ceremony where they mimic the British Colonial leaders, and dance, imitate, and recreate the motions and actions of the Colonial leaders. They did this in a trance like state, and while some felt this was just a ceremony, others have felt that it was to mock the authority, and to try to steal the powers of the Europeans, in their own way revolting against the system.
In these ceremonies the people dance, use fire on themselves, spew a white foam from their mouths, perform rituals, and imitate the Europeans. They also do some ritualistic sacrificing, so for those of you who do NOT have the stomach to witness animal abuse, even if they eat said animals, then this movie is not for you. This movie was not well received when released, and basically disappeared as no one would release it. Over time it has become very sought after, and now there are versions of it on youtube, which is nice, as so many films like this have been lost to the ages.
While it is technically hard to review a Mondo movie, it is even harder to review a short, but the best thing I can say is that it is very interesting to watch, and the version I saw had some pretty shitty subtitles. The ones on youtube were better, and since I read up on the movie I have more of an understanding of what was going on. All in all it was shot beautifully, had some interesting content, and minus the animal abuse it was pretty good, and worth seeing if you can stomach the unappealing stuff.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Saturday, July 23rd, 2016 at 9 PM
Format : 16mm to digital, in French with English subtitles
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, audience seemed a bit confused
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
The Mad Masters is a short film directed by Jean Rouch. It predates the Mondo thing by about 7 years, but it is the inspiration for the whole shockumentary thing. Now, please do not judge me on my history skills, this is not my area of expertise. But from what I can gather this short is about how the natives in a place called Accra, in Ghana, Africa dealt with their own issues and feeling about British colonialism in their area. You see, in 1927 the British came over to help advance the African people. While they brought over technology and a more "civilized" way of being, this clashed pretty hard with the African way of life. So they started a ceremony that was called the Hauka Movement. It was a ceremony where they mimic the British Colonial leaders, and dance, imitate, and recreate the motions and actions of the Colonial leaders. They did this in a trance like state, and while some felt this was just a ceremony, others have felt that it was to mock the authority, and to try to steal the powers of the Europeans, in their own way revolting against the system.
In these ceremonies the people dance, use fire on themselves, spew a white foam from their mouths, perform rituals, and imitate the Europeans. They also do some ritualistic sacrificing, so for those of you who do NOT have the stomach to witness animal abuse, even if they eat said animals, then this movie is not for you. This movie was not well received when released, and basically disappeared as no one would release it. Over time it has become very sought after, and now there are versions of it on youtube, which is nice, as so many films like this have been lost to the ages.
While it is technically hard to review a Mondo movie, it is even harder to review a short, but the best thing I can say is that it is very interesting to watch, and the version I saw had some pretty shitty subtitles. The ones on youtube were better, and since I read up on the movie I have more of an understanding of what was going on. All in all it was shot beautifully, had some interesting content, and minus the animal abuse it was pretty good, and worth seeing if you can stomach the unappealing stuff.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Saturday, July 23rd, 2016 at 9 PM
Format : 16mm to digital, in French with English subtitles
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, audience seemed a bit confused
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Mondo Topless (1966)
Mondo Topless (1966)
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Russ Meyer directed his version of a Mondo movie, called Mondo Topless, which is not a surprise in the least. Most of the focus of this very short full length movie (60 minutes) is spent on boobs, mostly while the girl dances. The girls were mostly topless, nude or burlesque dancers, and many of them give their opinions of their craft, nudity, sex, men and other things. Oddly enough, this would also be great movie for anyone with an obsession for older radios, stereos and reel to reel machines, as they are the second largest focus in the movie. In a different time, the movie company would have focused on one brand for promotional consideration, but here it is a random assortment of various brands and styles of items that play music.
One of the features of most of the mondo films is the music as well, and the soundtracks are always pretty amazing, for the most part. So as much as the equipment playing the music was a big part of the movie, the music also was. Mostly swinging jazz and pop sounds, done in a very 1960s sounding style. The other thing this movie has going for it is its narration. Done in an almost carnival style of speech, the narrator hawks its wares like they are cars.
Overall, even for an only hour long movie, this one can get a bit boring at times, as there is not that much being said, and only so many girls in the movie, so it feels very much the same throughout. There are some nice shots of scenery and cities as well, and you get a feel for what things looked like long ago.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Saturday, July 23rd, 2016 at 7:30 PM
Format : 35mm
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, audience seemed to enjoy it
Anthology Film Archives in NYC is currently running a series of films under the umbrella title Mondo Mondo. A Mondo film is basically a documentary, or faux documentary, that is also an exploitation film. Here is a link to what wikipedia says :
Mondo film
This genre was made popular by the 1962 movie Mondo Cane, which was a surprise hit and yielded a Grammy nomination for the theme song More, from the Mondo Cane soundtrack. The song was covered by Kai Winding and hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Many other films with the word Mondo (Italian for world) in their titles, including Mondo Topless, Mondo Nudo, Mondo Bizarro, and even Mondo New York. There were also tons of other movies that employed this shockumentary style over the years.
Russ Meyer directed his version of a Mondo movie, called Mondo Topless, which is not a surprise in the least. Most of the focus of this very short full length movie (60 minutes) is spent on boobs, mostly while the girl dances. The girls were mostly topless, nude or burlesque dancers, and many of them give their opinions of their craft, nudity, sex, men and other things. Oddly enough, this would also be great movie for anyone with an obsession for older radios, stereos and reel to reel machines, as they are the second largest focus in the movie. In a different time, the movie company would have focused on one brand for promotional consideration, but here it is a random assortment of various brands and styles of items that play music.
One of the features of most of the mondo films is the music as well, and the soundtracks are always pretty amazing, for the most part. So as much as the equipment playing the music was a big part of the movie, the music also was. Mostly swinging jazz and pop sounds, done in a very 1960s sounding style. The other thing this movie has going for it is its narration. Done in an almost carnival style of speech, the narrator hawks its wares like they are cars.
Overall, even for an only hour long movie, this one can get a bit boring at times, as there is not that much being said, and only so many girls in the movie, so it feels very much the same throughout. There are some nice shots of scenery and cities as well, and you get a feel for what things looked like long ago.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Anthology Film Archives, main theater, NYC
Date and time : Saturday, July 23rd, 2016 at 7:30 PM
Format : 35mm
Audience : Decent crowd, 20-50, audience seemed to enjoy it
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Mad Foxes (1981)
Mad Foxes (1981)
The other day I got an email from one of the movie promoters that show movies that I love mentioning that there was going to be a screening of a rare little known film that would be playing during a summer screening series at a place I had never heard of, called Brooklyn Fire Proof. Here is the link to the series :
Brooklyn Fire Proof Summer Screening Series
The movie that was being shown was called Mad Foxes, from 1981. I had never heard of it, but I knew one of the people who programmed it, and it looked insane. Now, normally I do not like to see outdoor screenings, but for something rare and hard to see, I decided to make my way down between the other two movies I was seeing that day.
How can you describe a movie like this? It starts off with a guy driving a nice but douchy car, with a hot young thing in the passenger seat. As they sit at the light, a motorcycle gang pulls up and harasses the driver. The driver ends up causing one of the gang to drive his motorcycle off the road, killing him. The couple then drives off and goes to a bar and they get completely trashed. When they come out to drive home, the gang is waiting to beat him up, and rape the girl for the hell of it. From there it becomes a one-upmanship situation where the gang fucks him over, then he goes after them.
Just to be clear, this is NOT a movie you would watch with any seriousness, even with the pretty negative stuff going on in it. First off, the gang seem to be Nazis, at least on the inside, as when they are out on their motorcycles, their Nazi emblems amazingly disappear. There is of course a fair amount of misogyny, over the top violence, gore, and boobs. I will forego with any more plot, as this one has to be seen to be believed.
The acting is bad, the direction ridiculous, the script is awful, and it does drag a bit in multiple scenes, but this was well worth my time and energy to travel to a relatively uninhabited area of Brooklyn. The moral of this movie is, don't buy a douchy car!
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Brooklyn Fire Proof Stages, in Brooklyn, NYC
Date and time : Friday July 22nd, 2016 at 10 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : About 50 people, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, except for the 3 girls who walked out after the first rape. Even the dog wandering between seats enjoyed itself!
The other day I got an email from one of the movie promoters that show movies that I love mentioning that there was going to be a screening of a rare little known film that would be playing during a summer screening series at a place I had never heard of, called Brooklyn Fire Proof. Here is the link to the series :
Brooklyn Fire Proof Summer Screening Series
The movie that was being shown was called Mad Foxes, from 1981. I had never heard of it, but I knew one of the people who programmed it, and it looked insane. Now, normally I do not like to see outdoor screenings, but for something rare and hard to see, I decided to make my way down between the other two movies I was seeing that day.
How can you describe a movie like this? It starts off with a guy driving a nice but douchy car, with a hot young thing in the passenger seat. As they sit at the light, a motorcycle gang pulls up and harasses the driver. The driver ends up causing one of the gang to drive his motorcycle off the road, killing him. The couple then drives off and goes to a bar and they get completely trashed. When they come out to drive home, the gang is waiting to beat him up, and rape the girl for the hell of it. From there it becomes a one-upmanship situation where the gang fucks him over, then he goes after them.
Just to be clear, this is NOT a movie you would watch with any seriousness, even with the pretty negative stuff going on in it. First off, the gang seem to be Nazis, at least on the inside, as when they are out on their motorcycles, their Nazi emblems amazingly disappear. There is of course a fair amount of misogyny, over the top violence, gore, and boobs. I will forego with any more plot, as this one has to be seen to be believed.
The acting is bad, the direction ridiculous, the script is awful, and it does drag a bit in multiple scenes, but this was well worth my time and energy to travel to a relatively uninhabited area of Brooklyn. The moral of this movie is, don't buy a douchy car!
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Brooklyn Fire Proof Stages, in Brooklyn, NYC
Date and time : Friday July 22nd, 2016 at 10 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : About 50 people, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, except for the 3 girls who walked out after the first rape. Even the dog wandering between seats enjoyed itself!
Friday, July 22, 2016
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
The other day there was a marathon at a local theater of all the new Star Trek movies. These marathons are especially great to me for one particular reason, I missed the previous two entries in this new reboot of Star Trek, so this allowed me to see all of them in a row, which really helps when I can barely remember what happened in the last one in certain series. I recently went to the Captain America Avengers marathon, and got to see 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies I missed, so these kind of marathons really get me engaged in a series I may have given up on due to my not having seen previous installments. I think this is my fourth such marathon, the first one I went to was when they showed all of the first four Saw movies for the price of one, which at the time I think was $10 in NYC. I was surprisingly entertained by the series, and I even went out and saw the fifth one the next year. The other marathon I went to was The Maze Runner marathon, not because I missed the first one, but purely to see the original right before the new one so it was more fresh in my mind. I had randomly caught the first one when it was out, knowing nothing about it, and really enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed the second one even more. It would be great if they showed all three when they release the third!
I will refrain from reviewing the first two Star Trek movies here, though I will try to write a review for each one soon. It is hard to keep up with writing reviews on days where you see 4 movies in a day (yes, I caught a fourth movie after the marathon). Let me just say that I thoroughly enjoyed the first two in the series, and thought they were both very good. I enjoy J.J. Abrams directing, and the look of his films, even if he is sort of ripping off the original movies for both this Star Trek series AND Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens. He tells pretty classic tales with a twist, and visually speaking I think he is really good at what he does. Which brings me to Star Trek Beyond.
This is the first in the new series that was not directed by J.J. Abrams and unfortunately it shows. While I am glad he directed the latest Star Wars, I wish he had also directed this one. From the first scene you can tell the tone of the movie is off, or at least different than the last two. It starts off a bit goofy, with a somewhat comical scene that seems more at home in the cheesier episodes of the original TV version, than a big budget movie. There is even a reference to one of the cheesier TV episodes as well, later on in the movie. It has been mentioned that the first scene is reminiscent of Galaxy Quest, which was sort of a Star Trek parody, but I saw that long ago and do not remember it well enough. Oddly enough, this is a very dark installment of the series. When I say dark, I mean the color and brightness of the movie, not the tone of the story, even though it does also have its dark moments. I could attribute this to the 3D version of it that I saw, but I am not sure that was the issue at all. I will know more if I get to see it again in 2D, as my girlfriend did not get to see this screening with me.
This new Star Trek was directed by Justin Lin, and written mostly by Simon Pegg. Justin is best known for directing a couple of the Fast And Furious series, while Simon Pegg is best know for writing and starring in Shaun Of The Dead. Now, while I like him as Scotty in the new movies, and I think he can help lend a voice to the new movies, his writing is much more comical, and it shows during certain scenes of this movie. The last two movies were written by Roberto Orci, and although he did have a hand in this one (though uncredited), it is obvious that Simon held the reins here. As for Justin, I have never seen any of the Fast And Furious movies, but I have seen at least three J.J. Abrams directed movies, and have enjoyed all of them very much.
Seeing all three back to back made it painfully obvious that the new one did not hold up to the other two, something which bothered me as I felt like they pretty much had a good thing going. Overall I felt the overly strong accents on both Scotty and Chekov were throwbacks to the original series, but also a bit forced, as even now we can see in this world that English will become the world language and is already being taught to children all over the world, who are learning it at a very fast rate, with little to no accents. To think that someone as smart as Chekov and Scotty would be unable to work that out seems illogical, to quote Spock. According to J.J. Abrams, the character of Chekov will NOT be recast since the untimely death of the actor, so that will be one less character with a throwback accent.
Overall this particular movie just suffered from tone issues and an inability to balance the humor with the action and suspense. The cast does a great job with what they have to work with, and the addition of the character of Jaylah was a nice touch. I was not crazy about the last last new character introduced in the last movie, but she grew on me as time went on. The odd part was, she was not only absent from this movie, but was literally not mentioned at all! That felt a bit odd, to say the least. One last nitpicky comment about the movie, regarding the soundtrack. As much as I get that movies sometimes use a song more than once in the series, I felt that using the Beastie Boys Sabotage AGAIN, after using it so well in the first one, was both lazy and annoying.
I do hope they bring J.J. back to direct the next one, though I fear he will stick to producing them from now on, not directing, which worries me that this series will start to slide. As it is, at the very least Zachary Quinto is not super keen on playing Spock forever, so this series may already be winding down. Obviously how well this does will help determine a lot of things having to do with where it goes.
Overall, even with all the flaws, I did enjoy the movie, just not nearly as much as the other two. I felt the cracks in the hull have started to show, and I worry it is only so long before the Enterprise once again breaks apart.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Regal E-Walk Stadium 13, theater 13, in NYC
Date and time : Wednesday July 20th, 2016 at 10 PM
Format : DCP 3D RPX
Audience : Between 60-100 people, since this was part of the marathon, people may have been a bit tired, but they seemed to enjoy themselves
The other day there was a marathon at a local theater of all the new Star Trek movies. These marathons are especially great to me for one particular reason, I missed the previous two entries in this new reboot of Star Trek, so this allowed me to see all of them in a row, which really helps when I can barely remember what happened in the last one in certain series. I recently went to the Captain America Avengers marathon, and got to see 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies I missed, so these kind of marathons really get me engaged in a series I may have given up on due to my not having seen previous installments. I think this is my fourth such marathon, the first one I went to was when they showed all of the first four Saw movies for the price of one, which at the time I think was $10 in NYC. I was surprisingly entertained by the series, and I even went out and saw the fifth one the next year. The other marathon I went to was The Maze Runner marathon, not because I missed the first one, but purely to see the original right before the new one so it was more fresh in my mind. I had randomly caught the first one when it was out, knowing nothing about it, and really enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed the second one even more. It would be great if they showed all three when they release the third!
I will refrain from reviewing the first two Star Trek movies here, though I will try to write a review for each one soon. It is hard to keep up with writing reviews on days where you see 4 movies in a day (yes, I caught a fourth movie after the marathon). Let me just say that I thoroughly enjoyed the first two in the series, and thought they were both very good. I enjoy J.J. Abrams directing, and the look of his films, even if he is sort of ripping off the original movies for both this Star Trek series AND Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens. He tells pretty classic tales with a twist, and visually speaking I think he is really good at what he does. Which brings me to Star Trek Beyond.
This is the first in the new series that was not directed by J.J. Abrams and unfortunately it shows. While I am glad he directed the latest Star Wars, I wish he had also directed this one. From the first scene you can tell the tone of the movie is off, or at least different than the last two. It starts off a bit goofy, with a somewhat comical scene that seems more at home in the cheesier episodes of the original TV version, than a big budget movie. There is even a reference to one of the cheesier TV episodes as well, later on in the movie. It has been mentioned that the first scene is reminiscent of Galaxy Quest, which was sort of a Star Trek parody, but I saw that long ago and do not remember it well enough. Oddly enough, this is a very dark installment of the series. When I say dark, I mean the color and brightness of the movie, not the tone of the story, even though it does also have its dark moments. I could attribute this to the 3D version of it that I saw, but I am not sure that was the issue at all. I will know more if I get to see it again in 2D, as my girlfriend did not get to see this screening with me.
This new Star Trek was directed by Justin Lin, and written mostly by Simon Pegg. Justin is best known for directing a couple of the Fast And Furious series, while Simon Pegg is best know for writing and starring in Shaun Of The Dead. Now, while I like him as Scotty in the new movies, and I think he can help lend a voice to the new movies, his writing is much more comical, and it shows during certain scenes of this movie. The last two movies were written by Roberto Orci, and although he did have a hand in this one (though uncredited), it is obvious that Simon held the reins here. As for Justin, I have never seen any of the Fast And Furious movies, but I have seen at least three J.J. Abrams directed movies, and have enjoyed all of them very much.
Seeing all three back to back made it painfully obvious that the new one did not hold up to the other two, something which bothered me as I felt like they pretty much had a good thing going. Overall I felt the overly strong accents on both Scotty and Chekov were throwbacks to the original series, but also a bit forced, as even now we can see in this world that English will become the world language and is already being taught to children all over the world, who are learning it at a very fast rate, with little to no accents. To think that someone as smart as Chekov and Scotty would be unable to work that out seems illogical, to quote Spock. According to J.J. Abrams, the character of Chekov will NOT be recast since the untimely death of the actor, so that will be one less character with a throwback accent.
Overall this particular movie just suffered from tone issues and an inability to balance the humor with the action and suspense. The cast does a great job with what they have to work with, and the addition of the character of Jaylah was a nice touch. I was not crazy about the last last new character introduced in the last movie, but she grew on me as time went on. The odd part was, she was not only absent from this movie, but was literally not mentioned at all! That felt a bit odd, to say the least. One last nitpicky comment about the movie, regarding the soundtrack. As much as I get that movies sometimes use a song more than once in the series, I felt that using the Beastie Boys Sabotage AGAIN, after using it so well in the first one, was both lazy and annoying.
I do hope they bring J.J. back to direct the next one, though I fear he will stick to producing them from now on, not directing, which worries me that this series will start to slide. As it is, at the very least Zachary Quinto is not super keen on playing Spock forever, so this series may already be winding down. Obviously how well this does will help determine a lot of things having to do with where it goes.
Overall, even with all the flaws, I did enjoy the movie, just not nearly as much as the other two. I felt the cracks in the hull have started to show, and I worry it is only so long before the Enterprise once again breaks apart.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : Regal E-Walk Stadium 13, theater 13, in NYC
Date and time : Wednesday July 20th, 2016 at 10 PM
Format : DCP 3D RPX
Audience : Between 60-100 people, since this was part of the marathon, people may have been a bit tired, but they seemed to enjoy themselves
Thursday, July 21, 2016
The Legend Of Tarzan (2016)
The Legend Of Tarzan (2016)
So a while back I saw the trailer for the recent version of The Jungle Book, and decided I wanted to catch it and see if it was any good. I was pretty shocked when not only did I like it, but I thought it was actually really good. Around the same time I saw a trailer for The Legend Of Tarzan. I actually mistakenly thought it was a trailer for The Jungle Book, until the title came on in the end. So in my head I figured I would see that as well, and see how well they updated this classic, especially after I so enjoyed The Jungle Book. Boy was THAT a mistake! It was like night and day, and if these two came out any closer in time I am pretty sure people would be comparing the two a lot more.
There may be possible SPOILERS in this this review, and I really did not enjoy this movie, and when I need to bitch about things, plot points and certain things in the movie may be described in detail, so you have been warned.
If you don't want to read the rest of the review, the simple response to this movie is, what a piece of shit! Seriously? You guys could not come up with a better movie for $180 million? Other than the one trailer I saw, I did not know anything about this movie prior to seeing it. I try to know as little as possible, so I go in with less expectations. Considering I had only seen one trailer that should have been the first clue that this might not be good, movie companies rarely over promote movies that are shitty.
The movie starts off with a bit of a history lesson about the way the Congo was split up, and some king and his interests, and how he needs these diamonds to keep control of his part, yada yada yada. While I get that this is crucial to the plot, it already feels like we walked into a movie in the middle and a friend is catching us up with where it is. So we see an army of guys going off into the Congo with a very meek looking guy, played by Christoph Waltz, who happens to be the only decent part of the movie. Mind you, he did not blow me away or anything, but at least he seemed to be trying.
So after the army has been defeated by the natives, all that is left is the poor old meek guy, who somehow avoids getting killed. As one warrior approaches him to kill him, he somehow kills the guy with some rosary beads. Then he meets with the leader of the warriors and is told that he can have the diamonds if he brings him Tarzan.
You see, Tarzan has grown up, and is now living in London. "What" you say? Why is he living in London? Well, you see, this movie picks up AFTER the story of Tarzan we all know, and were expecting to see in the movie. So I am sitting there really wondering if this is a sequel to a franchise that was rebooted a while ago, while I wasn't looking. In fact, I had to wait until I got home to check IMDb just to find out, no, this is not a sequel, they just decided to start the movie AFTER the story we all know. Fuck them, seriously.
So now we are in London, where Tarzan, who happens to be a Lord or something, is invited to Africa to look into something for the government. It all seems pretty sketchy, and then pops in Samuel L. Jackson, who now seems to play only two roles in his life, one, the action hero, two, the ex-civil war guy. Upon meeting Tarzan, he even makes a "me Tarzan, you Jane" joke. It is all too self aware and silly, but this is the role that Samuel Jackson always plays nowadays.
Somehow he convinces Tarzan to go back to the Africa, and Jane then somehow convinces Tarzan to let her go with him. So now the three of them are off to Africa. There is obviously some suspicion, so they jump the train a few stops early and visit some old friends. At this point I do not even remember exactly how, but the bad guy figures out where Tarzan is and kidnaps him and Jane and burns down the village they were staying in, while kidnapping some strong Africans for the hell of it. Tarzan somehow gets loose, but Jane, well, now she is the bait to bring Tarzan to the tribe leader who wants him.
At this point the movie starts to get silly and ridiculous, and any suspension of belief is gone. The CGI is awful, like, so bad it's scary. While The Jungle Book looked amazing, this looks like it's from 10 years ago, Shit, stuff 10 years ago looked better! When the buffalo run across the screen, it looks no better than when I play the Big Buck Hunter video game in a bar. The ostriches look stupid, and so fake, and even the backdrops look worse than some of those movies in the 1950s where the actors stood in front of painted backdrops. Some of the CGI was good, but too much was bad to enjoy it. At some point they do the whole age regression CGI for Tarzan, and it looks ridiculous. I saw a Bollywood film recently called The Fan, and the CGI people should watch that for some pointers on what age regression CGI should look like. It was pretty amazing, especially compared to this crapfest.
Let's talk actors for a moment. The lead guy looked like the kid from Home Alone all grown up in the jungle, I kept waiting for him to put his hands up to his face to express surprise. Jane is played by the actress who is now Harley Quinn, a role she looks much better in. In Tarzan she reminded me of Hayley from One Tree Hill, the not so pretty girl who is actually pretty but not as pretty as the lead girls. The acting overall felt very TV level. Sam Jackson was, well, Sam Jackson, you like him or you don't, and although I do like him, I am getting sick of seeing him in everything. I wonder who will get cast in these roles when he dies? Christoph Waltz is good as the villain, but not amazing or memorable. All in all nothing was top notch by any means.
The fights between Tarzan and the animals are ridiculous. They are either so big you know he could never win, or just so unrealistic that you can't even think it's real for a second. It is one of those things where you have to be in the moment, and you just can't be in the moment in this movie.
While reading the IMDb trivia, something I tend to do after I see most movies, most of it has to do with Tarzan's body and his diet leading up to the film. The director seemed obsessed with the actor being as sculpted as possible. To be honest, I didn't even notice during the movie, and his 8 pack literally was not seen by me, or at least registered in my brain. I did notice his cuts near his groin at some point, purely because his pants were way too low, but other than that I did not notice it at all. Maybe if they had worked on the script half as much as his body the movie would have been better. I swear, the diet they had him on, and the way the actor and crew reacted to it, sounded so abusive and sad, I can only imagine Hollywood now making male actors as obsessed with their bodies as female actors, which is not equality in my book, just sounds like more abuse.
All in all this movie was a huge disappointment, all I wanted was a fun escapist bit of entertainment, and what I got was a steaming pile of ape poo that should have been thrown at the director.
5 out of 10 stars.
Location : Regal Union Square, theater 6, in NYC
Date and time : Sunday July 17th, 2016 at 9:40 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : Not very crowded, the audience didn't react or seem to care at all.
So a while back I saw the trailer for the recent version of The Jungle Book, and decided I wanted to catch it and see if it was any good. I was pretty shocked when not only did I like it, but I thought it was actually really good. Around the same time I saw a trailer for The Legend Of Tarzan. I actually mistakenly thought it was a trailer for The Jungle Book, until the title came on in the end. So in my head I figured I would see that as well, and see how well they updated this classic, especially after I so enjoyed The Jungle Book. Boy was THAT a mistake! It was like night and day, and if these two came out any closer in time I am pretty sure people would be comparing the two a lot more.
There may be possible SPOILERS in this this review, and I really did not enjoy this movie, and when I need to bitch about things, plot points and certain things in the movie may be described in detail, so you have been warned.
If you don't want to read the rest of the review, the simple response to this movie is, what a piece of shit! Seriously? You guys could not come up with a better movie for $180 million? Other than the one trailer I saw, I did not know anything about this movie prior to seeing it. I try to know as little as possible, so I go in with less expectations. Considering I had only seen one trailer that should have been the first clue that this might not be good, movie companies rarely over promote movies that are shitty.
The movie starts off with a bit of a history lesson about the way the Congo was split up, and some king and his interests, and how he needs these diamonds to keep control of his part, yada yada yada. While I get that this is crucial to the plot, it already feels like we walked into a movie in the middle and a friend is catching us up with where it is. So we see an army of guys going off into the Congo with a very meek looking guy, played by Christoph Waltz, who happens to be the only decent part of the movie. Mind you, he did not blow me away or anything, but at least he seemed to be trying.
So after the army has been defeated by the natives, all that is left is the poor old meek guy, who somehow avoids getting killed. As one warrior approaches him to kill him, he somehow kills the guy with some rosary beads. Then he meets with the leader of the warriors and is told that he can have the diamonds if he brings him Tarzan.
You see, Tarzan has grown up, and is now living in London. "What" you say? Why is he living in London? Well, you see, this movie picks up AFTER the story of Tarzan we all know, and were expecting to see in the movie. So I am sitting there really wondering if this is a sequel to a franchise that was rebooted a while ago, while I wasn't looking. In fact, I had to wait until I got home to check IMDb just to find out, no, this is not a sequel, they just decided to start the movie AFTER the story we all know. Fuck them, seriously.
So now we are in London, where Tarzan, who happens to be a Lord or something, is invited to Africa to look into something for the government. It all seems pretty sketchy, and then pops in Samuel L. Jackson, who now seems to play only two roles in his life, one, the action hero, two, the ex-civil war guy. Upon meeting Tarzan, he even makes a "me Tarzan, you Jane" joke. It is all too self aware and silly, but this is the role that Samuel Jackson always plays nowadays.
Somehow he convinces Tarzan to go back to the Africa, and Jane then somehow convinces Tarzan to let her go with him. So now the three of them are off to Africa. There is obviously some suspicion, so they jump the train a few stops early and visit some old friends. At this point I do not even remember exactly how, but the bad guy figures out where Tarzan is and kidnaps him and Jane and burns down the village they were staying in, while kidnapping some strong Africans for the hell of it. Tarzan somehow gets loose, but Jane, well, now she is the bait to bring Tarzan to the tribe leader who wants him.
At this point the movie starts to get silly and ridiculous, and any suspension of belief is gone. The CGI is awful, like, so bad it's scary. While The Jungle Book looked amazing, this looks like it's from 10 years ago, Shit, stuff 10 years ago looked better! When the buffalo run across the screen, it looks no better than when I play the Big Buck Hunter video game in a bar. The ostriches look stupid, and so fake, and even the backdrops look worse than some of those movies in the 1950s where the actors stood in front of painted backdrops. Some of the CGI was good, but too much was bad to enjoy it. At some point they do the whole age regression CGI for Tarzan, and it looks ridiculous. I saw a Bollywood film recently called The Fan, and the CGI people should watch that for some pointers on what age regression CGI should look like. It was pretty amazing, especially compared to this crapfest.
Let's talk actors for a moment. The lead guy looked like the kid from Home Alone all grown up in the jungle, I kept waiting for him to put his hands up to his face to express surprise. Jane is played by the actress who is now Harley Quinn, a role she looks much better in. In Tarzan she reminded me of Hayley from One Tree Hill, the not so pretty girl who is actually pretty but not as pretty as the lead girls. The acting overall felt very TV level. Sam Jackson was, well, Sam Jackson, you like him or you don't, and although I do like him, I am getting sick of seeing him in everything. I wonder who will get cast in these roles when he dies? Christoph Waltz is good as the villain, but not amazing or memorable. All in all nothing was top notch by any means.
The fights between Tarzan and the animals are ridiculous. They are either so big you know he could never win, or just so unrealistic that you can't even think it's real for a second. It is one of those things where you have to be in the moment, and you just can't be in the moment in this movie.
While reading the IMDb trivia, something I tend to do after I see most movies, most of it has to do with Tarzan's body and his diet leading up to the film. The director seemed obsessed with the actor being as sculpted as possible. To be honest, I didn't even notice during the movie, and his 8 pack literally was not seen by me, or at least registered in my brain. I did notice his cuts near his groin at some point, purely because his pants were way too low, but other than that I did not notice it at all. Maybe if they had worked on the script half as much as his body the movie would have been better. I swear, the diet they had him on, and the way the actor and crew reacted to it, sounded so abusive and sad, I can only imagine Hollywood now making male actors as obsessed with their bodies as female actors, which is not equality in my book, just sounds like more abuse.
All in all this movie was a huge disappointment, all I wanted was a fun escapist bit of entertainment, and what I got was a steaming pile of ape poo that should have been thrown at the director.
5 out of 10 stars.
Location : Regal Union Square, theater 6, in NYC
Date and time : Sunday July 17th, 2016 at 9:40 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : Not very crowded, the audience didn't react or seem to care at all.
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Love & Peace (2015)
Love & Peace (2015)
At The Japan Society they are celebrating their 10th anniversary of Japan Cuts, their yearly festival of Japanese cinema. Here is where they introduce many of the Japanese films that have come out in the past couple years, and throw in a few classics for the hell of it. In 2007 I got to see my first Sion Sono film at this festival, and this year they showed a documentary on the director, plus two of his recent films. I have reviewed all of them, and I was not disappointed.
Both of his films that I saw were written by him 20+ years ago, and amazingly he has finally been able to produce them and have them released. Love & Peace is the more commercial of the two, though that does not mean it is not odd and wacky and surprising. The story revolves around a failed musician turned meek office clerk who still dreams of being a rock star. He ends up getting himself a tiny turtle and he feels a renewed interest in his dreams. I refuse to give any more plot details as the journey is the enjoyment in this movie, and spoiling any of that would be a shame.
Be warned, this is somewhat a kids movie, but since it is Japanese, you should not show this to most kids unless they are not easily frightened or emotional, as there are some scenes that might really upset some kids. Meanwhile, regardless of its appeal to kids, this movie is 100% enjoyable to adults as well. It is funny, heartwarming, sad, silly, insane, cute, and all around a fun time. The acting is a bit over the top, but it works for this sort of movie. The effects are, well, cheap, but again, you forgive any of the silly flaws that may exist in a movie this wonderful. Even the songs are fun!
Sion Sono has slowly become one of my favorite directors, and so far he does not have any duds, just movies that I didn't love, but liked in one way or another. Now that I have seen about 12 of his features, I am hungry for more. Hopefully he continues making movies for a long time.
8 out of 10 stars. (This rating may go higher if I get to see this film again)
Location : The Japan Society, in NYC
Date and time : Saturday July 16th, 2016 at 7:30 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : Sold out, audience loved it!
At The Japan Society they are celebrating their 10th anniversary of Japan Cuts, their yearly festival of Japanese cinema. Here is where they introduce many of the Japanese films that have come out in the past couple years, and throw in a few classics for the hell of it. In 2007 I got to see my first Sion Sono film at this festival, and this year they showed a documentary on the director, plus two of his recent films. I have reviewed all of them, and I was not disappointed.
Both of his films that I saw were written by him 20+ years ago, and amazingly he has finally been able to produce them and have them released. Love & Peace is the more commercial of the two, though that does not mean it is not odd and wacky and surprising. The story revolves around a failed musician turned meek office clerk who still dreams of being a rock star. He ends up getting himself a tiny turtle and he feels a renewed interest in his dreams. I refuse to give any more plot details as the journey is the enjoyment in this movie, and spoiling any of that would be a shame.
Be warned, this is somewhat a kids movie, but since it is Japanese, you should not show this to most kids unless they are not easily frightened or emotional, as there are some scenes that might really upset some kids. Meanwhile, regardless of its appeal to kids, this movie is 100% enjoyable to adults as well. It is funny, heartwarming, sad, silly, insane, cute, and all around a fun time. The acting is a bit over the top, but it works for this sort of movie. The effects are, well, cheap, but again, you forgive any of the silly flaws that may exist in a movie this wonderful. Even the songs are fun!
Sion Sono has slowly become one of my favorite directors, and so far he does not have any duds, just movies that I didn't love, but liked in one way or another. Now that I have seen about 12 of his features, I am hungry for more. Hopefully he continues making movies for a long time.
8 out of 10 stars. (This rating may go higher if I get to see this film again)
Location : The Japan Society, in NYC
Date and time : Saturday July 16th, 2016 at 7:30 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : Sold out, audience loved it!
The Whispering Star (2015)
The Whispering Star (2015)
Japan Cuts is celebrating its 10th anniversary at The Japan Society this year, and some of the movies look pretty good. But what REALLY interested me was the fact that they were showing both a documentary on Sion Sono, and two recent Sion Sono movies I have not seen before! In 2007 I got to see my first Sion Sono at Japan Cuts, one called Exte: Hair Extension. It was funny and amusing and scary and a bit of a parody, and we were pretty impressed. I ended up seeing some others a couple years later, and although I won't say any blew me away, they all were good and had some merits and were very watchable, even when overly long, or about subject matter I was not exactly into. Then a couple years ago I saw a bunch in a row that were really good, like Himizu, Why Don't You Play In Hell, and the amazing Guilty Of Romance. Now that I have seen 12 or so of his films, can safely say he is a director that somehow has never disappointed me, which is almost unheard of. Most of my favorite directors have made some serious duds, including David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Brain De Palma, John Carpenter and Takashi Miike. While Sono has yet to make a movie that is as good as the best of those other directors, he has somehow never made a dud either (of the ones I have seen). I cannot say that for the other directors on that list.
The Whispering Star is a film close to Sono's heart. One of 2 films he wrote over 20 years ago that recently were produced, this one was updated to include the Fukushima tragedy in the script. The story is simple, as is the production of this film, but using the word simple is not an insult in this case. The film is mostly in black and white, has very little dialogue and is beautifully shot. It is basically about a long distance shipping company that ships all over the universe. Humans seem to be all over the galaxy now, and they are all living in places that look just like Fukushima (since many of these scenes were shot in the forbidden zone). Many of the actors in the film are also displaced residents of Fukushima. The action (a word I use lightly here) takes place as the android who is in the rented ship does her menial chores on a daily basis while waiting to get to the next planet to deliver a package. There is very little dialogue, and really not too much goes on, there is no soundtrack, even some of the background noise has been taken out to create a more sparse effect, yet somehow it still ends up being a very beautiful film.
This film is NOT for everyone, but if you do not mind slow quiet films with little action, this might be something you find worthy of watching. One of the great things about Sono is, even though he may give you a movie you would not normally ever want to see, somehow he can pull it off and still make you enjoy it.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Japan Society, in NYC
Date and time : Saturday July 16th, 2016 at 4:45 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : Sold out show, audience seemed moved by it.
Japan Cuts is celebrating its 10th anniversary at The Japan Society this year, and some of the movies look pretty good. But what REALLY interested me was the fact that they were showing both a documentary on Sion Sono, and two recent Sion Sono movies I have not seen before! In 2007 I got to see my first Sion Sono at Japan Cuts, one called Exte: Hair Extension. It was funny and amusing and scary and a bit of a parody, and we were pretty impressed. I ended up seeing some others a couple years later, and although I won't say any blew me away, they all were good and had some merits and were very watchable, even when overly long, or about subject matter I was not exactly into. Then a couple years ago I saw a bunch in a row that were really good, like Himizu, Why Don't You Play In Hell, and the amazing Guilty Of Romance. Now that I have seen 12 or so of his films, can safely say he is a director that somehow has never disappointed me, which is almost unheard of. Most of my favorite directors have made some serious duds, including David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Brain De Palma, John Carpenter and Takashi Miike. While Sono has yet to make a movie that is as good as the best of those other directors, he has somehow never made a dud either (of the ones I have seen). I cannot say that for the other directors on that list.
The Whispering Star is a film close to Sono's heart. One of 2 films he wrote over 20 years ago that recently were produced, this one was updated to include the Fukushima tragedy in the script. The story is simple, as is the production of this film, but using the word simple is not an insult in this case. The film is mostly in black and white, has very little dialogue and is beautifully shot. It is basically about a long distance shipping company that ships all over the universe. Humans seem to be all over the galaxy now, and they are all living in places that look just like Fukushima (since many of these scenes were shot in the forbidden zone). Many of the actors in the film are also displaced residents of Fukushima. The action (a word I use lightly here) takes place as the android who is in the rented ship does her menial chores on a daily basis while waiting to get to the next planet to deliver a package. There is very little dialogue, and really not too much goes on, there is no soundtrack, even some of the background noise has been taken out to create a more sparse effect, yet somehow it still ends up being a very beautiful film.
This film is NOT for everyone, but if you do not mind slow quiet films with little action, this might be something you find worthy of watching. One of the great things about Sono is, even though he may give you a movie you would not normally ever want to see, somehow he can pull it off and still make you enjoy it.
7 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Japan Society, in NYC
Date and time : Saturday July 16th, 2016 at 4:45 PM
Format : DCP
Audience : Sold out show, audience seemed moved by it.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
The Sion Sono a/k/a Jônetsu tairiku Presents Sono Shion to iu ikimono (2016)
The Sion Sono a/k/a Jônetsu tairiku Presents Sono Shion to iu ikimono
Each year The Japan Society here in NYC shows a series of Japanese films right after The New York Asian Film Festival wraps up. This year the NYAFF wrapped up on July 9th, and on July 14th Japan Cuts, The Japan Society's showcase on Japanese films, started. Back in the day (a few years ago) NYAFF and Japan Cuts would co-sponsor some of the films, and after a few days of them co-presenting films, Japan Cuts would finish out its run on its own. That was where I saw my first Sion Sono film, called Exte. The guy that programmed Japan Cuts and worked with NYAFF eventually left The Japan Society to join NYAFF exclusively, and their ties were severed.
As a film lover, and a fan of focusing on a particular director's work, this year has been pretty great. On top of a month long retrospective on Brian De Palma at The Metrograph, I also got to see De Palma, the documentary that basically spends 2 hours letting De Palma talk about his own movies and his love for other movies. De Palma has always been a director who has been one of my favorites, not because his hit to miss ratio is so good, but because when he does have a hit it's pretty fucking amazing.
Another director I have been obsessing over is Sion Sono, but for a very different reason. Out of the 10 films I have seen that he has directed, I have yet to leave the theater feeling like I wasted my time, or that the movie was bad. Although none of the 10 or so I have seen has hit the heights of the 4 De Palma films I think are near perfect, at least 4 of Sion Sono's movies have come pretty close. The other 6 may not have been great, but they were solid pieces of entertainment, even when they are overly long, badly filmed, or just plain insane. I am NOT a fan of the epic, meaning, I generally think most movies should be about 90 minutes long. Two hours tops, with very very rare exceptions. I have now seen 2 Sion Sono films that were overly long, Bad Film and Love Exposure. Bad Film found him revisiting footage he took on a Hi-8 camera in the 1990's, mostly improv stuff, and combined with some new footage he made an almost 3 hour long film. Love Exposure is almost 4 hours long, and while I can sit through 5 movies in a row, sitting through one 4 hour movie generally would be torture to me. Somehow I enjoyed both these films, regardless of how much I feel I should have hated them.
So when I found out that at Japan Cuts this year there was a documentary on Sion Sono, I was excited. I also found out that they were debuting his movie called The Whispering Star, a black and white sci-fi film, which is unlikely to get any real release in the US. The thought of seeing these back to back made me a very happy camper.
The documentary follows the director for roughly a year, starting with his doing some painting for a gallery opening, to his filming of The Whispering Star. It also follows the documentary formula by telling us a bit about his history, his movies, his friends and family and his career. We hear from his wife, some of the actors he has used in the past, his sister, his high school friends, and even a producer he worked with a long time ago. He talks about art, drinking, being a virgin, painting, his troubles in the film industry and what he is up to.
Much of the film focuses on a project very near to his heart, a movie called The Whispering Star. It is a movie he wrote 20 years ago, but recently updated it to include the Fukushima disaster, where the nuclear plant in Japan ruptured due to an earthquake and tsunami. He filmed much of it in the quarantine zone, with local residents who were displaced from their homes.
This documentary helps shed light on his working process, and how he feels about his art and output. He is obviously a very determined man, one who never gave up regardless of how much was in his way for much of the time. We get to see how he interacts with his wife and others in his life, and hear his musings on all sorts of topics. He is obviously a lover of the arts, whether it be books, music, movies or fine art.
The film touches on enough topics that it did make me feel like I now know his and his reasons for being much more than I did in the past. Before this I knew some of his movies, but little about the director himself. Although my preference for a film like this is much more linear in both timeline and style, this movie did not fail to entertain me and give me a sense of who the man behind the lens is.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Japan Society, in NYC
Date and time : Saturday July 16th, 2016 at 2:30 PM
Format : DCP
Audience :Maybe half full, but the crowd seemed to be enjoying it.
Each year The Japan Society here in NYC shows a series of Japanese films right after The New York Asian Film Festival wraps up. This year the NYAFF wrapped up on July 9th, and on July 14th Japan Cuts, The Japan Society's showcase on Japanese films, started. Back in the day (a few years ago) NYAFF and Japan Cuts would co-sponsor some of the films, and after a few days of them co-presenting films, Japan Cuts would finish out its run on its own. That was where I saw my first Sion Sono film, called Exte. The guy that programmed Japan Cuts and worked with NYAFF eventually left The Japan Society to join NYAFF exclusively, and their ties were severed.
As a film lover, and a fan of focusing on a particular director's work, this year has been pretty great. On top of a month long retrospective on Brian De Palma at The Metrograph, I also got to see De Palma, the documentary that basically spends 2 hours letting De Palma talk about his own movies and his love for other movies. De Palma has always been a director who has been one of my favorites, not because his hit to miss ratio is so good, but because when he does have a hit it's pretty fucking amazing.
Another director I have been obsessing over is Sion Sono, but for a very different reason. Out of the 10 films I have seen that he has directed, I have yet to leave the theater feeling like I wasted my time, or that the movie was bad. Although none of the 10 or so I have seen has hit the heights of the 4 De Palma films I think are near perfect, at least 4 of Sion Sono's movies have come pretty close. The other 6 may not have been great, but they were solid pieces of entertainment, even when they are overly long, badly filmed, or just plain insane. I am NOT a fan of the epic, meaning, I generally think most movies should be about 90 minutes long. Two hours tops, with very very rare exceptions. I have now seen 2 Sion Sono films that were overly long, Bad Film and Love Exposure. Bad Film found him revisiting footage he took on a Hi-8 camera in the 1990's, mostly improv stuff, and combined with some new footage he made an almost 3 hour long film. Love Exposure is almost 4 hours long, and while I can sit through 5 movies in a row, sitting through one 4 hour movie generally would be torture to me. Somehow I enjoyed both these films, regardless of how much I feel I should have hated them.
So when I found out that at Japan Cuts this year there was a documentary on Sion Sono, I was excited. I also found out that they were debuting his movie called The Whispering Star, a black and white sci-fi film, which is unlikely to get any real release in the US. The thought of seeing these back to back made me a very happy camper.
The documentary follows the director for roughly a year, starting with his doing some painting for a gallery opening, to his filming of The Whispering Star. It also follows the documentary formula by telling us a bit about his history, his movies, his friends and family and his career. We hear from his wife, some of the actors he has used in the past, his sister, his high school friends, and even a producer he worked with a long time ago. He talks about art, drinking, being a virgin, painting, his troubles in the film industry and what he is up to.
Much of the film focuses on a project very near to his heart, a movie called The Whispering Star. It is a movie he wrote 20 years ago, but recently updated it to include the Fukushima disaster, where the nuclear plant in Japan ruptured due to an earthquake and tsunami. He filmed much of it in the quarantine zone, with local residents who were displaced from their homes.
This documentary helps shed light on his working process, and how he feels about his art and output. He is obviously a very determined man, one who never gave up regardless of how much was in his way for much of the time. We get to see how he interacts with his wife and others in his life, and hear his musings on all sorts of topics. He is obviously a lover of the arts, whether it be books, music, movies or fine art.
The film touches on enough topics that it did make me feel like I now know his and his reasons for being much more than I did in the past. Before this I knew some of his movies, but little about the director himself. Although my preference for a film like this is much more linear in both timeline and style, this movie did not fail to entertain me and give me a sense of who the man behind the lens is.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Japan Society, in NYC
Date and time : Saturday July 16th, 2016 at 2:30 PM
Format : DCP
Audience :Maybe half full, but the crowd seemed to be enjoying it.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
The Mermaid (2016)
The Mermaid (2016)
Recently The Metrograph here in NYC showed a bunch of Stephen Chow movies (both ones he directed and ones he starred in) and although I found them all varying degrees of enjoyable, none of them got past the, yeah that was good, point. Like, they all were pleasant affairs, some worked a bit better than others, but for the most part they were just OK. I know people love him, and I get why, but so far I had yet to see him reach the heights that people were praising him for. Then he decides to direct a romantic comedy with an environmental message, about mermaids. Now, although I do not necessarily judge a book by its cover, this did not sound like a very appealing movie to me. But everyone kept telling me how good it was, and I decided to take a chance and go see it. Romantic comedies are NOT my thing, so it was a big surprise to me that I really enjoyed this!
The film is very much a by the numbers tale, of true love and good over evil, and saving the planet. In the hands of anyone else I probably would have hated this film. The CGI is decent, but a bit silly and cheesy at times. The 3D (this movie is in 3D) is unnecessary though it was pretty good as 3D goes, though some of the subtitles were a bit hard to read. The romance is both silly and naive, and not very believable. But sometimes a remarkable thing happens in the movies. Even with all the flaws and things in it that would make me not like the movie, some movies can still charm the pants off me, and this one did. It was sweet, kind, nice, romantic, and funny. I was shocked to be enjoying it regardless of its flaws.
The lead actress, Jelly Lin, is one of the reasons for this enjoyment of the movie. She is great as the lead mermaid, the one who is supposed to woo and kill the "evil" guy. There is an octopus guy who is both ridiculous and pretty funny at times. The "evil" guy plays his role like a dashing playboy actor of yesteryear, basically being a dick for the first part of the film. Of course, as he turns less evil we find the true villains in the film as well.
Like I said before, this movie is very typical, feels exceedingly familiar, and is not exactly breaking any new ground here. The trick with a movie like this is purely in the execution, and this time the execution is fun, silly, funny, romantic and sweetly sad. While this is normally a movie I would never recommend, this is the exception to the rule. This gets added to my very small list of romantic comedies I have enjoyed.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Metrograph, Theater 1, in NYC
Date and time : Tuesday July 12th, 2016 at 9:30 PM
Format : DCP in 3D
Audience : Not many people, but not empty, audience was laughing and seemed to enjoy themselves
Recently The Metrograph here in NYC showed a bunch of Stephen Chow movies (both ones he directed and ones he starred in) and although I found them all varying degrees of enjoyable, none of them got past the, yeah that was good, point. Like, they all were pleasant affairs, some worked a bit better than others, but for the most part they were just OK. I know people love him, and I get why, but so far I had yet to see him reach the heights that people were praising him for. Then he decides to direct a romantic comedy with an environmental message, about mermaids. Now, although I do not necessarily judge a book by its cover, this did not sound like a very appealing movie to me. But everyone kept telling me how good it was, and I decided to take a chance and go see it. Romantic comedies are NOT my thing, so it was a big surprise to me that I really enjoyed this!
The film is very much a by the numbers tale, of true love and good over evil, and saving the planet. In the hands of anyone else I probably would have hated this film. The CGI is decent, but a bit silly and cheesy at times. The 3D (this movie is in 3D) is unnecessary though it was pretty good as 3D goes, though some of the subtitles were a bit hard to read. The romance is both silly and naive, and not very believable. But sometimes a remarkable thing happens in the movies. Even with all the flaws and things in it that would make me not like the movie, some movies can still charm the pants off me, and this one did. It was sweet, kind, nice, romantic, and funny. I was shocked to be enjoying it regardless of its flaws.
The lead actress, Jelly Lin, is one of the reasons for this enjoyment of the movie. She is great as the lead mermaid, the one who is supposed to woo and kill the "evil" guy. There is an octopus guy who is both ridiculous and pretty funny at times. The "evil" guy plays his role like a dashing playboy actor of yesteryear, basically being a dick for the first part of the film. Of course, as he turns less evil we find the true villains in the film as well.
Like I said before, this movie is very typical, feels exceedingly familiar, and is not exactly breaking any new ground here. The trick with a movie like this is purely in the execution, and this time the execution is fun, silly, funny, romantic and sweetly sad. While this is normally a movie I would never recommend, this is the exception to the rule. This gets added to my very small list of romantic comedies I have enjoyed.
8 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Metrograph, Theater 1, in NYC
Date and time : Tuesday July 12th, 2016 at 9:30 PM
Format : DCP in 3D
Audience : Not many people, but not empty, audience was laughing and seemed to enjoy themselves
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
A Hero Never Dies (1998)
A Hero Never Dies (1998)
The New York Asian Film Festival celebrated its 15th year, and with it came a surprise screening at the SVA Theater on 23rd Street, a theater most people don't even know about, which the School Of Visual Arts bought a while back. They use it for school reasons, and rent it out other times for festivals and other film related events. To give you an idea of how far the NYAFF has come, you have to take note of the fact that they SOLD OUT a surprise screening, charging $20 a ticket, and never told anyone what was playing. Obviously at the very least there is trust in the older movies they show!
The film turned out to be A Hero Never Dies, a macho crime movie based on warring gangs in the Chinese triads. The lead guy in each gang seem to have a past together, one we do not ever get to find out the backstory on. In the first shootout scene, we come to realize the leader of both gangs, Jack and Martin, know each other and bear some sort of a grudge, but were also possibly friends in the past. The shootout causes many casualties, and both leaders end up surviving. After passing on some messages back and forth, the two of them "run" into each other at a local bar. After some seriously macho posturing, in a scene you have to see to believe, they sit down with their respective girlfriends and spend the night drinking.
We get to meet their girlfriends a bit after they leave, which turns out to be interesting, as the girlfriends play an important role in a movie that on the surface seems to be about guys and how large their penises are. The movie looks like it is going to be a standard typical gangster type film, until a whole bunch of shit happens and the film gets turned on its head. This is NOT a criticism at all, in fact, it saves this film from being another typical movie about the same old tired cliches, which is funny, since the movie almost begs you to believe it's one big cliche.
I hate to be plot heavy when I write about a movie, as I find the surprise of things to be much more enjoyable, so I will leave the rest for you to discover. The movie is directed by Johnnie To, who has directed over 50 things at least, and still puts out movies to this day. His latest if called Three, and I plan to try and catch that this week, plus I have seen 5 of his other movies before. Although I did like them, and didn't actively dislike any in particular, they have always fallen a bit flat. This one is the shining star of his filmography, so far.
If you are familiar with the Japanese song Sukiyaki, originally done by Kyu Sakamoto, and covered in English by A Taste Of Honey, then expect to be bombarded with the song in this movie, although in a weird lounge jazz version with slightly wrong lyrics.
One last comment, something I rarely say in my life, but I almost feel like there could be an American remake of this, which, if all the casting was amazing, could be a great movie. But Hollywood could never do this, it would have to be some independent film backed with some money, or else it would just be a disaster like most remakes.
8 out of 10 stars, one of the three high points of this years New York Asian Film Festival.
Location : SVA Theater, Smaller theater (I think), in NYC
Date and time : Friday July 8th, 2016 at 8:40 PM
Format : 35mm print (from AFGA)
Audience : Sold out, audience loved it
The New York Asian Film Festival celebrated its 15th year, and with it came a surprise screening at the SVA Theater on 23rd Street, a theater most people don't even know about, which the School Of Visual Arts bought a while back. They use it for school reasons, and rent it out other times for festivals and other film related events. To give you an idea of how far the NYAFF has come, you have to take note of the fact that they SOLD OUT a surprise screening, charging $20 a ticket, and never told anyone what was playing. Obviously at the very least there is trust in the older movies they show!
The film turned out to be A Hero Never Dies, a macho crime movie based on warring gangs in the Chinese triads. The lead guy in each gang seem to have a past together, one we do not ever get to find out the backstory on. In the first shootout scene, we come to realize the leader of both gangs, Jack and Martin, know each other and bear some sort of a grudge, but were also possibly friends in the past. The shootout causes many casualties, and both leaders end up surviving. After passing on some messages back and forth, the two of them "run" into each other at a local bar. After some seriously macho posturing, in a scene you have to see to believe, they sit down with their respective girlfriends and spend the night drinking.
We get to meet their girlfriends a bit after they leave, which turns out to be interesting, as the girlfriends play an important role in a movie that on the surface seems to be about guys and how large their penises are. The movie looks like it is going to be a standard typical gangster type film, until a whole bunch of shit happens and the film gets turned on its head. This is NOT a criticism at all, in fact, it saves this film from being another typical movie about the same old tired cliches, which is funny, since the movie almost begs you to believe it's one big cliche.
I hate to be plot heavy when I write about a movie, as I find the surprise of things to be much more enjoyable, so I will leave the rest for you to discover. The movie is directed by Johnnie To, who has directed over 50 things at least, and still puts out movies to this day. His latest if called Three, and I plan to try and catch that this week, plus I have seen 5 of his other movies before. Although I did like them, and didn't actively dislike any in particular, they have always fallen a bit flat. This one is the shining star of his filmography, so far.
If you are familiar with the Japanese song Sukiyaki, originally done by Kyu Sakamoto, and covered in English by A Taste Of Honey, then expect to be bombarded with the song in this movie, although in a weird lounge jazz version with slightly wrong lyrics.
One last comment, something I rarely say in my life, but I almost feel like there could be an American remake of this, which, if all the casting was amazing, could be a great movie. But Hollywood could never do this, it would have to be some independent film backed with some money, or else it would just be a disaster like most remakes.
8 out of 10 stars, one of the three high points of this years New York Asian Film Festival.
Location : SVA Theater, Smaller theater (I think), in NYC
Date and time : Friday July 8th, 2016 at 8:40 PM
Format : 35mm print (from AFGA)
Audience : Sold out, audience loved it
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Body Double (1984)
Body Double (1984)
The Metrograph in NYC is showing a Brian De Palma series, showcasing 28 out of his 29 full length films. Brian De Palma is one of my favorite directors, having directed 4 films I would rate a 9 out of 10, which include Carrie, Phantom Of The Paradise, Dressed To Kill and Body Double. He has many other very good films, including Sisters, Scarface and Hi Mom. He also has about 14 movies I have not seen yet, so this is my chance to see as many of them as I can make time for, so expect to see me reviewing all the ones I have missed or skipped due to disinterest. Nothing I like more than rounding out the catalogue of films I have yet to see of a particular director, especially one held in such high esteem.
So June was the month when these movies played, but on days where I saw 3-5 movies a day I definitely did not get to review everything I saw and a few of these reviews are out of order and back dated, like this one. This one I got to se on June 18th, 2016, and it is one of my favorite De Palma films, along with being in my Top 100 of all time. If I had to rank it, this would be my #2 De Palma film of all time, but who knows, I might have to reshuffle that when I see them again.
Body Double is some high class sleaze that falls in the category of films like Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Single White Female, Poison Ivy, Sliver and so many countless others. It is about murder, lust, intrigue, porn, acting, claustrophobia and infidelity. We get to meet Jake, a low budget actor working on a low budget vampire flick. He gets stuck in his coffin due to his claustrophobia, and gets sent home early. There he finds his live in girlfriend with her face glowing, while she rides another guy in bed. This random act sets in motion a plot that, while a bit complicated at times, is well worth sitting through.
Jake ends up house sitting for a new friend, and there he sees a neighbor through a telescope set up in the house. De Palma once again revisits his urge to peep, or view others while they don't know they are being viewed. This is also something that Hitchcock was interested in, and this film is an homage to Hitchcock and the old mystery movies of yesteryear, brought up to modern times. I will skip the rest of the plot, the less I tell you the more you should enjoy it, but this is a film that can be watched and rewatched many times, as little things that you didn't notice pop up. One of the themes of the movie is claustrophobia, and while they bring up many up front references, one little thing I didn't notice until multiple screenings was the fact that Jake, the lead guy who suffers from claustrophobia, drives a convertible. It's little things like that which make Brian De Palma an amazing director and writer.
The movie stars no one of any major fame, EXCEPT for the fact that it helped make Melanie Griffith a household name. Her performance as Holly Body, a wacky but lovable porn star gave her leading role status after this movie. Meanwhile, everyone else in this movie puts on a good show, they do their jobs and do it well, and to be honest, I love the fact that there is no major star attached to this movie, as the story was the lead actor.
The depiction of the porn world is amusing and not completely off base, and the music video appearance of Frankie Goes To Hollywood doing their classic song Relax may date the film, but also gives it some appeal as it was the 1980s, and this is how it was. The score is mesmerizing, and really added to the dreamlike quality of the movie. There are also some very seriously funny moments as well, whether intentional or not, and they make me very happy.
This is a near perfect film, with just a bit of the cheese being too much at times, but all in all, one of the best of De Palma, and one worth watching again and again. I was glad to revisit this film for at least the 5th time, and will one day again if I get a chance.
9 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Metrograph, Theater 1, in NYC
Date and time : June 18, 2016 4PM
Format : 35mm print
Audience : Well attended
The Metrograph in NYC is showing a Brian De Palma series, showcasing 28 out of his 29 full length films. Brian De Palma is one of my favorite directors, having directed 4 films I would rate a 9 out of 10, which include Carrie, Phantom Of The Paradise, Dressed To Kill and Body Double. He has many other very good films, including Sisters, Scarface and Hi Mom. He also has about 14 movies I have not seen yet, so this is my chance to see as many of them as I can make time for, so expect to see me reviewing all the ones I have missed or skipped due to disinterest. Nothing I like more than rounding out the catalogue of films I have yet to see of a particular director, especially one held in such high esteem.
So June was the month when these movies played, but on days where I saw 3-5 movies a day I definitely did not get to review everything I saw and a few of these reviews are out of order and back dated, like this one. This one I got to se on June 18th, 2016, and it is one of my favorite De Palma films, along with being in my Top 100 of all time. If I had to rank it, this would be my #2 De Palma film of all time, but who knows, I might have to reshuffle that when I see them again.
Body Double is some high class sleaze that falls in the category of films like Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Single White Female, Poison Ivy, Sliver and so many countless others. It is about murder, lust, intrigue, porn, acting, claustrophobia and infidelity. We get to meet Jake, a low budget actor working on a low budget vampire flick. He gets stuck in his coffin due to his claustrophobia, and gets sent home early. There he finds his live in girlfriend with her face glowing, while she rides another guy in bed. This random act sets in motion a plot that, while a bit complicated at times, is well worth sitting through.
Jake ends up house sitting for a new friend, and there he sees a neighbor through a telescope set up in the house. De Palma once again revisits his urge to peep, or view others while they don't know they are being viewed. This is also something that Hitchcock was interested in, and this film is an homage to Hitchcock and the old mystery movies of yesteryear, brought up to modern times. I will skip the rest of the plot, the less I tell you the more you should enjoy it, but this is a film that can be watched and rewatched many times, as little things that you didn't notice pop up. One of the themes of the movie is claustrophobia, and while they bring up many up front references, one little thing I didn't notice until multiple screenings was the fact that Jake, the lead guy who suffers from claustrophobia, drives a convertible. It's little things like that which make Brian De Palma an amazing director and writer.
The movie stars no one of any major fame, EXCEPT for the fact that it helped make Melanie Griffith a household name. Her performance as Holly Body, a wacky but lovable porn star gave her leading role status after this movie. Meanwhile, everyone else in this movie puts on a good show, they do their jobs and do it well, and to be honest, I love the fact that there is no major star attached to this movie, as the story was the lead actor.
The depiction of the porn world is amusing and not completely off base, and the music video appearance of Frankie Goes To Hollywood doing their classic song Relax may date the film, but also gives it some appeal as it was the 1980s, and this is how it was. The score is mesmerizing, and really added to the dreamlike quality of the movie. There are also some very seriously funny moments as well, whether intentional or not, and they make me very happy.
This is a near perfect film, with just a bit of the cheese being too much at times, but all in all, one of the best of De Palma, and one worth watching again and again. I was glad to revisit this film for at least the 5th time, and will one day again if I get a chance.
9 out of 10 stars.
Location : The Metrograph, Theater 1, in NYC
Date and time : June 18, 2016 4PM
Format : 35mm print
Audience : Well attended
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Dreamcatcher (2003)
Dreamcatcher (2003)
So recently IFC Center in NYC was doing a Stephen King movie series for their weekend midnight movies. I have expressed many times before, that most of the Stephen King horror movies, with a few obvious exceptions, are pretty damned awful. I've been told how scary both Cat's Eye and Pet Semetary are (they aren't), and how enjoyable Christine and Cujo are, but none of those were good in my opinion. Some in this series were ones I had never even heard of, like Needful Things, which was even worse than some of the others! So each week as I knock off another dreadful Stephen King adaptation, I wonder if this will be worse than the last one.
I had literally never heard of Dreamcatcher before, the book or the movie. The movie flopped, so I guess that is to be expected, but oddly enough I thoroughly enjoyed it! Even my girlfriend, who dislikes the Stephen King adaptations even more than I do was entertained. I went in expecting very little, but that has been my default feeling going into each one of these. With a decent cast including Morgan Freeman, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee and Damian Lewis, and a director that at least had made a few movies before, like The Big Chill, this movie seemed like it might do well. Why people didn't like it I have no clue, except it may just be one of those times where people who read the book didn't like the way the movie came out. Since I had not even heard of it and the book is not one of his most loved, I am guessing it just fell off the radar for most other people.
The story is sort of like a sci-fi thriller version of Stand By Me, where a group of young kids meets a developmentally disabled kid and help him with some bullies. He in turn help them by sharing his special powers, one of which is the ability for them all to converse without speaking. As adults, they have all gone their separate ways, but meet once a year to go to a cabin. Once there some weird things start to happen.
Without giving away too much plot, I will say this. If this were not a Stephen King book first, and was just a random movie that came out with this plot, I think it would have done much better. The cast is good, although it borders between A class actors and TV actors, but that does not hurt the appeal. There is also a very special appearance by Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids On The Block, and he is pretty amazing in it. The movie does end up being a bit gross at times, and a bit goofy too as well, but none of that detracts from the decent story and good acting and fun times.
All in all I was entertained, though abused after by the fans of the other Stephen King movies I do not like, as they all claim this is the worst Stephen King adaptation ever. Well to bad guys, I do not agree with you.
7 out of 10 stars.
So recently IFC Center in NYC was doing a Stephen King movie series for their weekend midnight movies. I have expressed many times before, that most of the Stephen King horror movies, with a few obvious exceptions, are pretty damned awful. I've been told how scary both Cat's Eye and Pet Semetary are (they aren't), and how enjoyable Christine and Cujo are, but none of those were good in my opinion. Some in this series were ones I had never even heard of, like Needful Things, which was even worse than some of the others! So each week as I knock off another dreadful Stephen King adaptation, I wonder if this will be worse than the last one.
I had literally never heard of Dreamcatcher before, the book or the movie. The movie flopped, so I guess that is to be expected, but oddly enough I thoroughly enjoyed it! Even my girlfriend, who dislikes the Stephen King adaptations even more than I do was entertained. I went in expecting very little, but that has been my default feeling going into each one of these. With a decent cast including Morgan Freeman, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee and Damian Lewis, and a director that at least had made a few movies before, like The Big Chill, this movie seemed like it might do well. Why people didn't like it I have no clue, except it may just be one of those times where people who read the book didn't like the way the movie came out. Since I had not even heard of it and the book is not one of his most loved, I am guessing it just fell off the radar for most other people.
The story is sort of like a sci-fi thriller version of Stand By Me, where a group of young kids meets a developmentally disabled kid and help him with some bullies. He in turn help them by sharing his special powers, one of which is the ability for them all to converse without speaking. As adults, they have all gone their separate ways, but meet once a year to go to a cabin. Once there some weird things start to happen.
Without giving away too much plot, I will say this. If this were not a Stephen King book first, and was just a random movie that came out with this plot, I think it would have done much better. The cast is good, although it borders between A class actors and TV actors, but that does not hurt the appeal. There is also a very special appearance by Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids On The Block, and he is pretty amazing in it. The movie does end up being a bit gross at times, and a bit goofy too as well, but none of that detracts from the decent story and good acting and fun times.
All in all I was entertained, though abused after by the fans of the other Stephen King movies I do not like, as they all claim this is the worst Stephen King adaptation ever. Well to bad guys, I do not agree with you.
7 out of 10 stars.
The Priests (2015) movie review
The Priests (2015)
The New York Asian Film Festival came to town recently, and although this is normally a time I really look forward to, I have been catching so many good to great movies all over town that getting excited about the prospect of new and potentially bad Asian films did not hold the appeal it once did. When this festival started in 2002, there were few outlets to see Asian films. Based on the work of these guys and other programmers, theaters nowadays show all kinds of Asian films, and for that I am grateful. But while the festival was on this year, there were MANY competing Asian films playing at other theaters as well, at least 12 that I could easily count, and I am pretty sure it is more like at least 20 over the 18 days or so of the festival. It looks like I am going to catch at least 7 of the 50+ movies this year at the festival, but I have been known to see upwards of 20 or more. I already reviewed the second and third ones I have seen, which were Grace and The Mobfathers, and now I am popping back to the first one I saw on June 23rd, 2016, called The Priests.
Earlier in the year I caught The Wailing, a Korean exorcism filmed based on shamanism. This is a more traditional exorcism, based on the Catholic church, but also set in Korea. You could call this their take on The Exorcist, though it is not a blatant rip off by any means. The story revolves around a possessed girl, and one priest's attempt to save her. It takes two priests to do an exorcism, and everyone keeps quitting on him. The church is worried that he is molesting her instead of saving her, and the girl, while possessed, tries to kill herself as the demon inside of her would prefer to be in a male body, which would make it stronger. Even in Asian horror movies the Asians look down on having female children, their demons even don't want them!
After the introduction to the main characters, we get to see some of the basics of the exorcism, and what will be happening. We also get the new assistant's back story, giving us some idea why he wants to help save this girl. The film takes its time, this one does not rush, and they try to create a very creepy atmosphere regarding the demon and the possessed girl. Once we get down to the exorcism proper, there are a few scary moments and gross moments, as all demons must puke out vile things.
All in all it wasn't a bad movie, but it just did not really do anything for me. It just felt sort of standard and not special at all, the characters were OK, but not fully developed, and the whole thing felt all too familiar and overplayed. It did look good, and there were a few scary moments, but nothing that would make me recommend this film to anyone. The Wailing, while a bit long and less straightforward and very confusing, was more entertaining overall.
6 out of 10 stars.
The New York Asian Film Festival came to town recently, and although this is normally a time I really look forward to, I have been catching so many good to great movies all over town that getting excited about the prospect of new and potentially bad Asian films did not hold the appeal it once did. When this festival started in 2002, there were few outlets to see Asian films. Based on the work of these guys and other programmers, theaters nowadays show all kinds of Asian films, and for that I am grateful. But while the festival was on this year, there were MANY competing Asian films playing at other theaters as well, at least 12 that I could easily count, and I am pretty sure it is more like at least 20 over the 18 days or so of the festival. It looks like I am going to catch at least 7 of the 50+ movies this year at the festival, but I have been known to see upwards of 20 or more. I already reviewed the second and third ones I have seen, which were Grace and The Mobfathers, and now I am popping back to the first one I saw on June 23rd, 2016, called The Priests.
Earlier in the year I caught The Wailing, a Korean exorcism filmed based on shamanism. This is a more traditional exorcism, based on the Catholic church, but also set in Korea. You could call this their take on The Exorcist, though it is not a blatant rip off by any means. The story revolves around a possessed girl, and one priest's attempt to save her. It takes two priests to do an exorcism, and everyone keeps quitting on him. The church is worried that he is molesting her instead of saving her, and the girl, while possessed, tries to kill herself as the demon inside of her would prefer to be in a male body, which would make it stronger. Even in Asian horror movies the Asians look down on having female children, their demons even don't want them!
After the introduction to the main characters, we get to see some of the basics of the exorcism, and what will be happening. We also get the new assistant's back story, giving us some idea why he wants to help save this girl. The film takes its time, this one does not rush, and they try to create a very creepy atmosphere regarding the demon and the possessed girl. Once we get down to the exorcism proper, there are a few scary moments and gross moments, as all demons must puke out vile things.
All in all it wasn't a bad movie, but it just did not really do anything for me. It just felt sort of standard and not special at all, the characters were OK, but not fully developed, and the whole thing felt all too familiar and overplayed. It did look good, and there were a few scary moments, but nothing that would make me recommend this film to anyone. The Wailing, while a bit long and less straightforward and very confusing, was more entertaining overall.
6 out of 10 stars.
The Mobfathers (2016) movie review
The Mobfathers (2016)
As the New York Asian Film Festival celebrates its 15th Anniversary, I have unfortunately had little time to catch nearly as many films at this festival than I normally do. This was the third film I have caught of the 50+ they are playing over 18 or so days, and I plan to catch another 4 at least before the festival ends.
Originally I was going to skip this movie, as I am a bit burnt out on mob/triad movies, but I noticed that one of my favorite actors, Anthony Wong, was in this one. He has starred in fun movies like The Untold Story and The Ebola Syndrome, among others, and he has started to become a favorite of mine. So I figured at the very least I get to see another one of his movies.
The set up is a very typical mob story. Two rival organizations go up against each other and the leaders of both end up in jail together. One keeps trying to kill the other for the whole 5 years they are there. Chuck, the leader of one group, has become peaceful, and is thinking of quitting when he gets out, as his wife had just found out she was pregnant the night he got arrested, and he has never seen his child.
While they are preparing to be released, the Mobfathers convene to decide who will be the next in line for a coveted position in the organization. Upon release a gang of motorcyclists attack Chuck and his rival and Chuck sees that he should get out while he can. When he gets home though, he finds his wife is not thrilled with him, his kid doesn't know him, and he starts to feel the mob is the only choice he has. Once he gets his fortune told, he decides to run for the position.
What follows is pretty much standard fare when it comes to mob movies. Backstabbing, double crossing, scheming and lies form the basis for the rest of the movie. Although we, and probably even Chuck, can see where this is going, there is no deviation, just a straight shot until the end. If you like this sort of thing, then you might like this movie, though there are dozens better than this one, if you ask me.
The lead guy, Chuck, is played by Chapman To, who looks like an accountant during some of the scenes. I was reminded of Fred Williamson's accountant brother in Black Caesar during those scenes. It worked when he was a money man to Fred Williamson's tough guy, but in this movie he was supposed to be the tough guy, and looking like an accountant does not champion that idea. There was also a ton of CGI blood, and some gore in this movie. It was poorly done and very distracting, and kept taking me out of the movie. The acting was fine, and while Anthony Wong was great as usual, this is an older and more subdued Anthony Wong.
All in all this was a bit of a disappointment to me, as Hong Kong films about triads and organized crime have always been fun to watch, and this one felt a bit pointless.
6 out of 10 stars.
As the New York Asian Film Festival celebrates its 15th Anniversary, I have unfortunately had little time to catch nearly as many films at this festival than I normally do. This was the third film I have caught of the 50+ they are playing over 18 or so days, and I plan to catch another 4 at least before the festival ends.
Originally I was going to skip this movie, as I am a bit burnt out on mob/triad movies, but I noticed that one of my favorite actors, Anthony Wong, was in this one. He has starred in fun movies like The Untold Story and The Ebola Syndrome, among others, and he has started to become a favorite of mine. So I figured at the very least I get to see another one of his movies.
The set up is a very typical mob story. Two rival organizations go up against each other and the leaders of both end up in jail together. One keeps trying to kill the other for the whole 5 years they are there. Chuck, the leader of one group, has become peaceful, and is thinking of quitting when he gets out, as his wife had just found out she was pregnant the night he got arrested, and he has never seen his child.
While they are preparing to be released, the Mobfathers convene to decide who will be the next in line for a coveted position in the organization. Upon release a gang of motorcyclists attack Chuck and his rival and Chuck sees that he should get out while he can. When he gets home though, he finds his wife is not thrilled with him, his kid doesn't know him, and he starts to feel the mob is the only choice he has. Once he gets his fortune told, he decides to run for the position.
What follows is pretty much standard fare when it comes to mob movies. Backstabbing, double crossing, scheming and lies form the basis for the rest of the movie. Although we, and probably even Chuck, can see where this is going, there is no deviation, just a straight shot until the end. If you like this sort of thing, then you might like this movie, though there are dozens better than this one, if you ask me.
The lead guy, Chuck, is played by Chapman To, who looks like an accountant during some of the scenes. I was reminded of Fred Williamson's accountant brother in Black Caesar during those scenes. It worked when he was a money man to Fred Williamson's tough guy, but in this movie he was supposed to be the tough guy, and looking like an accountant does not champion that idea. There was also a ton of CGI blood, and some gore in this movie. It was poorly done and very distracting, and kept taking me out of the movie. The acting was fine, and while Anthony Wong was great as usual, this is an older and more subdued Anthony Wong.
All in all this was a bit of a disappointment to me, as Hong Kong films about triads and organized crime have always been fun to watch, and this one felt a bit pointless.
6 out of 10 stars.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Justice, My Foot! (1992)
Justice, My Foot! (1992)
Very soon The Metrograph in NYC will host the new release of The Mermaid, directed by Stephen Chow. To commemorate this release, they are showing a few of the older movies directed or starring Stephen Chow. So far I have seen Shaolin Soccer and King Of Comedy, both of which he directed and starred in. This was an earlier role for him, where he only acted, with Johnnie To as the director.
In this charming comedy/drama period piece Chow stars as a shyster lawyer whose wife wants him to give up his job as she feels that his cursing their family and causing their children to die. So far they have buried 12 children, only have one left and she wants to have at least one live. He takes on one more case, and lo and behold, his son dies.
Soon he does retire and opens a business and tries to live the straight and narrow life. But his wife meets someone who is being framed and she tries to help the woman. When that doesn't work out, she asks her husband to help her. He breaks his oath to retire and goes back to the courts.
The movie runs the gamut, as all Hong Kong films seem to, from comedy to drama to martial arts and back again. There are some fun martial arts fights and stunts, as his wife is the martial artist in the family. Watching her beat up guys while 9 months pregnant is pretty amusing.
Although the 35mm print we saw was a bit on the rough side, it looked better than some films I have seen! It was acted well, the sets were fine, and all in all it was a standard Hong Kong film in many ways. There are some slightly off color jokes in it that are pretty amusing as well.
Unfortunately I had to skip both Kung Fu Hustle and The God Of Cookery, which also played this week, but maybe one day they will play again. For now I will wait until The Mermaid opens here in NYC and see that soon!
7 out of 10 stars.
Very soon The Metrograph in NYC will host the new release of The Mermaid, directed by Stephen Chow. To commemorate this release, they are showing a few of the older movies directed or starring Stephen Chow. So far I have seen Shaolin Soccer and King Of Comedy, both of which he directed and starred in. This was an earlier role for him, where he only acted, with Johnnie To as the director.
In this charming comedy/drama period piece Chow stars as a shyster lawyer whose wife wants him to give up his job as she feels that his cursing their family and causing their children to die. So far they have buried 12 children, only have one left and she wants to have at least one live. He takes on one more case, and lo and behold, his son dies.
Soon he does retire and opens a business and tries to live the straight and narrow life. But his wife meets someone who is being framed and she tries to help the woman. When that doesn't work out, she asks her husband to help her. He breaks his oath to retire and goes back to the courts.
The movie runs the gamut, as all Hong Kong films seem to, from comedy to drama to martial arts and back again. There are some fun martial arts fights and stunts, as his wife is the martial artist in the family. Watching her beat up guys while 9 months pregnant is pretty amusing.
Although the 35mm print we saw was a bit on the rough side, it looked better than some films I have seen! It was acted well, the sets were fine, and all in all it was a standard Hong Kong film in many ways. There are some slightly off color jokes in it that are pretty amusing as well.
Unfortunately I had to skip both Kung Fu Hustle and The God Of Cookery, which also played this week, but maybe one day they will play again. For now I will wait until The Mermaid opens here in NYC and see that soon!
7 out of 10 stars.
Monday, July 4, 2016
Awasarn Lok Suay a/k/a Grace (2016)
Awasarn Lok Suay a/k/a Grace (2016)
The New York Asian Film Festival is celebrating its 15th year in existence, and showing 50+ Asian films over the course of almost 3 weeks. I have been going since the first festival, which was held at Anthology Film Archives when it showed just 11 films. At that first one I saw Visitor Q, Takashi Miike's digital video foray into incest and breast milk. It was literally what made me decide to go to that festival, and what started a now 14 year obsession with that director and Asian cinema in general. I have since seen about 30 Miike films in theaters, and literally hundreds of Asian films. The most I have seen one festival was about 26, and the least may have been the first festival with only maybe 2-4. This year, due to time, money, and other reasons, I will not get to see many unfortunately, and this so far is my second. If I am lucky I will make it to about 7, which may sound high to most, but for me that is severely low. The first one I saw this year is The Priests, which I have yet to review, but last night's film was a Thai slasher called Awasarn Lok Suay a/k/a Grace.
The festival is mostly held at Lincoln Center now, and last night was no exception. Before the movie the lead actress showed up and took many publicity photos, and posed with fans and other industry people. She is the one of the left, with the producer of the movie (and her translator for the night) on the right.
The movie revolves around a few high school students who become internet celebrities. The Facebook obsession takes front and center here as a driving force for jealousy, backstabbing, cosplay, hook ups, kidnapping and torture. Although this comes off as a slasher film, there is some social commentary and a build up to the violent, and gory scenes.
I do have a few complaints though. I feel like this film tried a bit too hard to be mysterious in its presentation, as there are multiple flashback scenes that explain the main character's motivations, which overall help the film in theory, but the confusing nature of how the flashbacks are presented did not sit well with me. On top of that, it got a bit confusing as to who was who at certain points, especially when there are multiple girls running around in schoolgirl outfits. Could just be a white guy thing though!
The film is well acted, and was not really as bad nor as boring as I expected it to be. I am generally not a fan of more recent horror movies, though sometimes the Asian ones can be exceptionally creepy. This one went more towards the slasher vein (pun intended), and I really feel if they had made the plot a bit less confusing and more straightforward with less flashbacks it would have been more entertaining and easier to understand. This does end up in very much of a torture porn/gore area, with a lot of fetishistic views of young Asian girls tied up, bleeding, in pain. There is also a cautionary tale of the world's obsession with youth, beauty, social media, and serial killers.
The movie does have an especially good little hashtag, which is also a line in the movie :
#TheWorldAintPrettyButIAm
Overall I felt somewhat disappointed by the end of the film, the more interesting bits ended up near the end, where the final info that pulls the film together is revealed, but the set up is too long and the action only really gets going near the end. I am generally not a fan of remakes, but I do think there is the basis for a really good horror movie here, so maybe someone can do a remake that takes full advantage of the story.
6 out of 10 stars.
The New York Asian Film Festival is celebrating its 15th year in existence, and showing 50+ Asian films over the course of almost 3 weeks. I have been going since the first festival, which was held at Anthology Film Archives when it showed just 11 films. At that first one I saw Visitor Q, Takashi Miike's digital video foray into incest and breast milk. It was literally what made me decide to go to that festival, and what started a now 14 year obsession with that director and Asian cinema in general. I have since seen about 30 Miike films in theaters, and literally hundreds of Asian films. The most I have seen one festival was about 26, and the least may have been the first festival with only maybe 2-4. This year, due to time, money, and other reasons, I will not get to see many unfortunately, and this so far is my second. If I am lucky I will make it to about 7, which may sound high to most, but for me that is severely low. The first one I saw this year is The Priests, which I have yet to review, but last night's film was a Thai slasher called Awasarn Lok Suay a/k/a Grace.
The festival is mostly held at Lincoln Center now, and last night was no exception. Before the movie the lead actress showed up and took many publicity photos, and posed with fans and other industry people. She is the one of the left, with the producer of the movie (and her translator for the night) on the right.
The movie revolves around a few high school students who become internet celebrities. The Facebook obsession takes front and center here as a driving force for jealousy, backstabbing, cosplay, hook ups, kidnapping and torture. Although this comes off as a slasher film, there is some social commentary and a build up to the violent, and gory scenes.
I do have a few complaints though. I feel like this film tried a bit too hard to be mysterious in its presentation, as there are multiple flashback scenes that explain the main character's motivations, which overall help the film in theory, but the confusing nature of how the flashbacks are presented did not sit well with me. On top of that, it got a bit confusing as to who was who at certain points, especially when there are multiple girls running around in schoolgirl outfits. Could just be a white guy thing though!
The film is well acted, and was not really as bad nor as boring as I expected it to be. I am generally not a fan of more recent horror movies, though sometimes the Asian ones can be exceptionally creepy. This one went more towards the slasher vein (pun intended), and I really feel if they had made the plot a bit less confusing and more straightforward with less flashbacks it would have been more entertaining and easier to understand. This does end up in very much of a torture porn/gore area, with a lot of fetishistic views of young Asian girls tied up, bleeding, in pain. There is also a cautionary tale of the world's obsession with youth, beauty, social media, and serial killers.
The movie does have an especially good little hashtag, which is also a line in the movie :
#TheWorldAintPrettyButIAm
Overall I felt somewhat disappointed by the end of the film, the more interesting bits ended up near the end, where the final info that pulls the film together is revealed, but the set up is too long and the action only really gets going near the end. I am generally not a fan of remakes, but I do think there is the basis for a really good horror movie here, so maybe someone can do a remake that takes full advantage of the story.
6 out of 10 stars.
Sunday, July 3, 2016
King Of Comedy (1999)
King Of Comedy (1999)
Stephen Chow's new movie The Mermaid is coming out soon, so The Metrograph in NYC decided to show a few earlier Stephen Chow movies for those of us that missed them the first time they came through here, IF they came through here. I do not think I have ever seen one, so I was glad to be able to catch a couple so far this time.
Although this movie shares a name with the Martin Scorsese classic The King Of Comedy starring Robert De Niro, the comparisons stop there. Oddly enough I was supposed to catch the Robert De Niro one this week as well, but I could not fit it in my schedule.
Back to the Stephen Chow movie, this was the first of his I have seen (I have since seen Shaolin Soccer and reviewed it here : Shaolin Soccer), and I was struck by how this film takes its cues by many Hong Kong films, in the way that its tone is not constant throughout the movie, in fact, it is almost like a mish mash of tones and styles. The movie runs the gamut from comedy to romance to drama to weird and back again. You know you are watching a Hong Kong movie when there is a naked little boy running around throughout the movie as if it's not weird at all!
The plot revolves around the struggle to become an actor, and this one extra's life and times. He meets a hostess, which would be like a call girl in America, who he tries to teach how to act so she can do her job better. He falls for her and things get a bit complicated when his acting career starts o work out for him.
This is a fun but silly movie, which keeps you guessing with the tone changes and sight gags and craziness throughout. It was a nice introduction to Stephen Chow's work.
7 out of 10 stars.
Stephen Chow's new movie The Mermaid is coming out soon, so The Metrograph in NYC decided to show a few earlier Stephen Chow movies for those of us that missed them the first time they came through here, IF they came through here. I do not think I have ever seen one, so I was glad to be able to catch a couple so far this time.
Although this movie shares a name with the Martin Scorsese classic The King Of Comedy starring Robert De Niro, the comparisons stop there. Oddly enough I was supposed to catch the Robert De Niro one this week as well, but I could not fit it in my schedule.
Back to the Stephen Chow movie, this was the first of his I have seen (I have since seen Shaolin Soccer and reviewed it here : Shaolin Soccer), and I was struck by how this film takes its cues by many Hong Kong films, in the way that its tone is not constant throughout the movie, in fact, it is almost like a mish mash of tones and styles. The movie runs the gamut from comedy to romance to drama to weird and back again. You know you are watching a Hong Kong movie when there is a naked little boy running around throughout the movie as if it's not weird at all!
The plot revolves around the struggle to become an actor, and this one extra's life and times. He meets a hostess, which would be like a call girl in America, who he tries to teach how to act so she can do her job better. He falls for her and things get a bit complicated when his acting career starts o work out for him.
This is a fun but silly movie, which keeps you guessing with the tone changes and sight gags and craziness throughout. It was a nice introduction to Stephen Chow's work.
7 out of 10 stars.
Shaoilin Soccer (2001)
Shaolin Soccer (2001)
Earlier today I got to see the Stephen Chow classic, Shaolin Soccer. Directed by and starring Stephen Chow, this is a movie I have heard about for many years, but missed the first time around. The Metrograph in NYC is playing some of the older Stephen Chow movies in anticipation of his new one, called The Mermaid.
The plot is much like so many movies, but this one revolves around soccer. A one time soccer star who is now cripple, wants to coach a new team. He ends up recruiting a bunch of Shaolin monks to be his soccer team. There is also a love interest for the lead soccer guy, a not so attractive girl who makes street food.
Like many films from Hong Kong, this movie is ridiculous, funny, sad, dramatic and comical. For some reason many films from Hong Kong do not have a specific tone, but instead try to fit all tones in one movie. Although I can find this a bit distracting at times, it worked pretty well for this film.
This was a huge hit when it came out, and was even released in the US, in a shortened version, 3 years later. It is no wonder, as this movie is a silly crowd pleaser with jokes for all ages. The effects can be a bit laughable, and the CGI is not very god at all, but that is not what anyone came to see. All in all it was a fun sorta mindless movie, perfect for a 4th of July weekend.
7 out of 10 stars.
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