RIP Eileen Brennan

Unfortunately I did not feel well at all last night so I did not watch anything; I feel better now but I have to be out the door doing something for the rest of today, so I'll be back tomorrow night where I will watch and review a movie featuring the late Brennan. I haven't seen too much of her work unfortunately but I will revisit one of her most memorable roles for the first time in too long.

Will God Forgive Me For Watching Only God Forgives?

Only God Forgives (2013)

36% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 112 reviews)


Runtime: 89 minutes


Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn


Starring: Ryan Gosling, Vithaya Pansringram, Kristin Scott Thomas, Yayaying Rhatha Phongham


From: Many different production companies, including Gaumont and Wild Bunch


You know, I did not think that I'd see another movie this year that would made me as angry as Hatchet 3 did, but something else I spent money on via Xbox Video (too much money, as it turns out in hindsight) has ruined my day, and it was this movie, one that is extremely polarizing, whether you look it up on Letterboxd (more on that later), IMDb, or various messageboards. This movie got walk-outs and was heavily booed at Cannes once it finished.


I now know why. What a thoroughly pointless, repugnant, unappealing movie this is!


To copy the plot description from the IMDb (which does a better job of explaining the plot than the actual movie does in presenting it):


“Bangkok. Ten years ago Julian killed a man and went on the run. Now he manages a Thai boxing club as a front for a drugs operation. Respected in the criminal underworld, deep inside, he feels empty. When Julian's brother murders an underage prostitute, the police call on retired cop Chang - the Angel of Vengeance. Chang allows the father to kill his daughter's murderer, then 'restores order' by chopping off the man's right hand. Julian's mother Crystal - the head of a powerful criminal organization - arrives in Bangkok to collect her son's body. She dispatches Julian to find his killers and 'raise hell'”


After I finish giving my brief thoughts I am going to copy and paste a LONG review of this movie from someone on Letterboxd known as Gustav Roman. I am not pals with him on there or even read any of his other reviews. It just so happens that he explains in masterful detail (I don't agree with all of it; just most of it) why this was so awful a movie-watching experience. That will be in italics. Before that, my thoughs...


You can have a movie look pretty, be lit up colorfully to set up a mood, and all that-and even have a nice musical score-but when you have an utterly pointless movie filled with absolutely repellant characters, a pointless story that is not realistic at all, a complete blank slate for a lead character (except for the fact that he's p*ssy-whipped by his own mom), AND my new least-favorite antagonist of all-time* (I mean that in a bad way; Danielle Harris as Marybeth in the aforementioned Hatchet 3 is still my least-favorite character as she was supposed to be the hero), then you're going to have a movie I thought was God-awful and a complete waste of time, even with some amusing moments.

* Replacing Justin Hammer, as portrayed by Sam Rockwell in Iron Man 2.


Honestly, Thomas as the criminal boss was SO unappealing in a way that will turn you off and make you want to shut off the movie. If I hadn't spent 560 Xbox Points to rent it for today, that's what I would have done! She's racist, yells at everyone and is a complete bitch... just the absolute worst and not the sort of character I ever need to see again. Plus, having somehow made it through Hatchet 3 meant that I had to make it through this too. Nothing happened at the end that made it worth the Battan Death March of a journey.

Excuse my language but what artsy-fartsy bullshit this was! I guess I should expect as much when (according to IMDb) the director said he made this because "he got the idea for the film while his wife was pregnant with their second daughter. He felt very existentialistic and felt he had much anger and violence in him, but did not know how to let it out. Suddenly he had the idea that the definite person to hold all the answers to existential questions and life's problems where God and imagined himself having a physical fight with God."


Christ!

Now, onto Gustav's comments. I'll be back Wednesday afternoon, hopefully with something that did not enrage me.


There are films that are artsy, thought-provoking, deep and complex; then there are films that are immature, exploitative, dumb and mindless. 'Only God Forgives' however, is a film of the worst kind. It is a film that is immature, exploitative and mindless but it thinks that it is a thought-provoking and complex masterpiece. It is a film that thinks that because its characters are morally ambiguous that they are somehow brilliantly written. It's a film that thinks that it can it can somehow get away with a non-existing story because it is "visually immersive and surreal enough". It is a film that shows horribly grotesque violence, not to prove a point or manipulate the audience, but just because it looks cool. "Wow, that blood really looks amazing dripping down that wall! And wow, look at how still and unflinching Ryan Gosling is while that prostitute masturbates!" This film is one of the most vile, meaningless and nauseating excuses for "art" that I have even seen.

I came into this movie with hardly any expectations. I was excited but I was not expecting (as the trailer suggested) a sequel to "Drive". I was just wanting this film to be a solid director/actor follow-up and a different experience. I was thinking that this film if anything would be a more thoughtful and meaningful film than the insanely cool "Drive". While I knew that this film was booed at Cannes I really didn't think much of that. "The Tree of Life" was booed at Cannes so how bad could this film really be? 

Obviously that bad. What this film accomplishes is zero aesthetic, style without a trace of substance and an almost self parody. It is lacking in any form of story, subtext, substance, and any possible thing that could possibly make up for those shortcomings. Winding Refn is clearly a director with stylistic sensibility but seeing cool looking Kubrick-like shots doesn't do anything to possibly make this film masterful. This film is about as far away from the word masterful as you can possibly get.

The story here, as just about everyone knows is nil. All we see through this 89 minute (and far too long at that) film is revenge and then re-revenge and then re-re-revenge all in slow-motion. All without any merit or any sort of weight outside of its cool-lookingness. Gratuitous and pointless revenge carried out by not morally vague characters but one-dimensionally bad characters. This didn't urk me because I didn't have someone to root for, it irked me because I didn't even have anyone interesting to watch. Every character here is horrible and annoying. Even Gosling, who does with his character an almost self-parody.

If it is possible to overstate understating, Gosling does it here. He is so still and so silent that he becomes loud. The mystery that he brought with his Driver character is simply gone. In "Drive" he was calm and cool but in "Only God Forgives" he is over the top in his silence. He comes off as just plain annoying. Not because his character here is not heroic like Driver but because here he shoves his cool and calm self in your face. Kristen Scott Thomas' evil manipulative mother certainly steals every scene she's in because of her huge and insanely intense character. She is the character that you instantly love to hate. Unfortunately though, she is stuck in a movie that doesn't deserve her.

The only thing that made me able to sit through these excruciatingly slow and boring 89 minutes was the hope that somehow it would all come together. That the poorly contrived story and random, senseless acts of brutal violence would somehow mean something greater in the end. The thing is though, it doesn't. Nothing about this film means anything. The violence has absolutely no weight to it what so ever. It isn't there to challenge or hold anything to the audience because it's only there long enough to be cool looking. Something that this movie has too much of for its own good.

I was trying to think that maybe I let my own repulsion get in the way of me somehow missing something great about this film but I'm coming up with absolutely nothing. This film is simply repulsive with absolutely nothing remotely meaningful or artistic to redeem it. I realize that the whole concept of surrealism is based on just immersing the audience in the world and not necessarily having a deep message behind it. I'm totally okay with surrealism but this film doesn't even do that very well. It tries to play the slow-burn game but only comes off as slow and bland. 

I know that majority of Winding Refn puritans are going to love this film for its "beautiful artistry" and some of them will probably unfollow me for not "getting" this film. I honestly wish that I didn't "get" this film and that I missed something brilliant. Federico Fellini said that the best movies are the ones that you don't understand. I would really like to say that I hated this movie but I didn't understand it. But the thing is I did understand it and I do still hate it.

Goodfellas

Goodfellas (1990)

Runtime: 146 minutes

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino

From: Warner Brothers

You know, I was thinking of what to watch tonight; I then noticed that I had this movie in my collection and I hadn't seen it in awhile. I thought I had reviewed this before but after a search, I was wrong. I already reviewed it on Letterboxd, just never here... until now. I have seen it a few times before, including once on the big screen, and the movie is still great. I rated it 5 stars out of 5 on Letterboxd; I mention that to demonstrate how highly I rate this.

I doubt I need to say much about the plot, but this is an always engrossing tale based on real life where Henry Hill (Liotta) idolizes the mob family he grew up by in Brooklyn. He decides to join up with them as a teenager and throughout the years you get to see him rise in power with his pals Jimmy Conway (De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Pesci) but as it typically is for many rich/successful people, drugs was his downfall and there goes the mob family he was in.

No matter how many times I see this, this movie still rules. Just about everything about it is perfect, from the way it's shot, to the plentiful use of music (it's used greatly during the downfall of Hill when he's high on drugs and is having a really bad day; you feel as exhausted and yet amped up to 11 as Hill was at the point), to the classic performances, to the story... even when old Henry treats his wife poorly he's still a compelling character. The fact that there's plenty of narration from Henry and yet that gimmick works for this movie... there isn't much else I can say except that this is a classic and just about all of the lengthy better written articles that talk about why this movie is a classic... you should read those too, and they're right.

Sorry but I am in a rush now or I'd write more. I will be back Monday night as I have a busy weekend ahead of me.

Abduction

Abduction (2011)

4% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 102 reviews)

Runtime: 106 minutes

Directed by: Poor John Singleton

Starring: A piece of cardboard... I mean, Taylor Lautner, Phil Collins' daughter Lily, Alfred Molina, Michael Nyqvist, Sigourney Weaver

From: Lionsgate

Yes, I have who knows how many hundreds of movies that I should watch-including those that I own in person-and yet I picked out something that I was almost positive I thought would be crap. Sometimes, I do enjoy watching something as I figure I will laugh at it and be amused due to its incompetence. This was one of those cases; even before it came out September of '11 there were plenty of people who made fun of it due to its premise and also due to who the lead was... the third wheel in the atrocious Twilight series of movies, an actor who I've never heard anything good about in terms of performance. I have never seen any of the tales of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan (I'd rather drink several bottles of nail polish remover in a row) so I figured this would be the “best” way for me to check out his “acting”.

The plot, stolen from Rotten Tomatoes (but edited): “For as long as he can remember, Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner) has had the uneasy feeling that he's living someone else's life. When he stumbles upon an image of himself as a little boy on a missing persons website, all of Nathan's darkest fears come true: he realizes his parents are not his own and his life is a lie, carefully fabricated to hide something more mysterious and dangerous than he could have ever imagined. Just as he begins to piece together his true identity, Nathan is targeted by a team of trained killers, forcing him on the run with the only person he can trust, his neighbor, Karen (Lily Collins).”

A great modern version of a classic 70's paranoid thriller, this is not... not by a country mile. What the story is all about is goofy and dumb, but it isn't the worst thing in the world. The way it's presented, though, is not good; things really aren't explained until the very end, so it's just a bunch of random crap happening for a long time. What I've heard is true, Taylor Lautner is a pretty terrible actor. His character was also an asstagonist. At least the movie tried to reach their demographic early on by having Wolf Boy from the Twilight films appear shirtless. Lily Collins isn't great either but she was a newbie at this point and was still better than Mr. Lautner; plus, she isn't bad to look at either... but the story, yeah it ends up being nonsensical with a lot of technology used that seems to be improbable at best, even if used by the likes of the CIA. Yes, the CIA is involved, along with a climax at a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game, back when that team was still pretty crappy.

The movie isn't really worth seeing, not even for the unintentional humor, such as the villain threatening the hero by saying he'll kill his real-life friends AND the ones on Facebook (really) and a preposterous scene where... well, I'll just blurt it out... some bad guys break into what turns out to be the foster home of Nathan and they kill his parents. Nathan fights back and a villain who is still alive reveals that "there's a bomb in the oven"... and he was right! A bomb that looks like it was ordered by Wile E. Coyote is in there and the bomb blows the house the hell up. The way it's presented, it makes no sense for there to be a bomb at all, unless the villains put a self-imposed time limit on themselves when they should have known that the foster parents had fighting skills and it wouldn't be an easy operation. 

Stupid, this movie is. Don't watch it! At least the famous faces (there's also Maria Bello, Jason Issacs, and Dermot Mulroney) and the director likely received nice paychecks to appear in this dreck, but it doesn't mean you have to watch it.

I'll be back tomorrow afternoon.

Nose Bleeds & More

I'll be back tomorrow afternoon with a proper review, or at least I should; among other things, I am pretty damn tired now and I don't feel like watching anything until later, right before I go to bed and I hopefully feel better. A few hours ago, a rather strange incident happened. I do not remember ever having had a nose bleed before, and yet for some reason I developed one. That was... curious. Eventually it stopped and I ended up feeling back to normal after awhile, but I can not explain why it happened. If it happens again that's when I'll start to worry; for now, I'll chalk it up as something strange and nothing more. At least with the nose bleed thing

Unless I end up so tired I don't feel like watching a damn thing, I should be back tomorrow afternoon with a movie review, and it's a film I am expecting to be terrible so that'll result in some colorful statements from me.

The Man With The Iron Fists: The Unrated Cut

Here is also something I may do once in a blue moon: watch an unrated version of something I had already reviewed for this site if it was more than just an additional minute or two of footage. The unrated Blu-Ray of this movie has about 12 additional minutes of footage. First, the original review from November, in italics:

The Man With The Iron Fists (2012)

55% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 40 reviews)

Runtime: 95 minutes

Directed by: RZA

Starring: RZA, Russell Crowe, Rick Yune, Dave Bautista, Byron Mann

From: Universal

Here is what I did late last night instead of watching the latter half of the election results. I decided to go to the cinema to forget about all of that for a few hours and to try and have a good time. I had heard rather mixed things about this film, and even the people who I suspect would hold the most interest in it had differing opinions. My knowledge of this sort of movie is rather limited as I haven't seen too much in the genre; Lord knows that RZA has like a million times more knowledge of it than I do, so I hope he would deliver something appropriate. To steal a line from somewhere, it was more like a movie you would see in a Grindhouse 2 that will never happen rather than a classic Hong Kong film from the 70's, but...

The plot isn't exactly complex: there are various clans in China in the 19^th century. A bad man known as Silver Lion takes over his Lion clan and they look to hijack a shipment of gold from the Emperor. They try to do it in a small village (Jungle Village... oh-e-oh-e-oh) where RZA is a blacksmith (and yes they actually do explain how he ended up in China), he has a lover (Jamie Chung) and there are other personalities that get involved, including a huge ripped dude with magical powers (Bautista), the head of a brothel (Lucy Liu) and a British soldier (Crowe).

The story is a mess and you can tell RZA is not what you'd call an experienced director at all, this being his first feature film. But, despite its warts, how the action isn't always filmed the best (although thankfully it isn't that shaky-cam crap) and overall it does seem slight and not as awesome as it could have been, I did manage to enjoy this wacky, strange film where judging by the performances and the story they had to be going for camp and silliness. I certainly wasn't bored, which was a complaint I heard on a site. It was so weird, I had no idea what to expect next so that kept my interest. It was a colorful world, for sure, and also a bloody one. You see a #lot# of blood throughout. As others have said, Crowe is the highlight as the brash opium-smoking Jack Knife. Yes, that's what he calls himself. Then again there are people known as Silver Lion and Brass Body, so there you go.

I do not know if I'd recommend seeing this on the big screen in a first-run theatre but maybe it's best for a dollar joint or a Redbox rental. I am glad I did not hate it after some of the bad reviews I heard. Even the odd mix of songs/score work for it for the most part. I could have done without hearing a Kanye West song but that is mostly because I've always thought of him as a loathsome human being. I am surprised a 20 million dollar wacky kung-fu film got made and released by Universal in 2012; that was a ballsy move and I don't know if it'll work out in terms of the box office. I am glad it happened given that most of what the big studios put out I could not care less about.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

The Movie Censorship website does a great breakdown of saying what the differences between the two cuts are, but like they said, the longer version does not change much aside from additional material and more violence; it's only for those people who enjoyed the theatrical version. My opinion is little changed from what I said above in November. The action scenes seemed easier to follow on the small screen, which is good. I rated the theatrical 3 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd and I'd rate the longer version the same.

Actually having seen some Shaw Brothers movies between November and now, what RZA was going for is now more obvious to me. I still say it does not always work but for sheer wackiness and something different, if you enjoy those Shaw Brothers movies of the 70's, martial arts, and/or really bloody action, then you should give it a shot and you might as well see the unrated version as you'll get more of what you'd like.

I'll be back Wednesday night.

Blair Re-Reviews: Drive

Here is something different from me; I may do this once in a blue moon; it certainly won't be a frequent thing. I decided that before I watch the VERY divisive Only God Forgives via On-Demand (Xbox Video, to be specific) I should revisit the previous effort from Refn and Gosling, which I hadn't seen since I watched it on the big screen in the fall of '11. I'll copy and paste below what I had originally written; that'll be in italics. Then, I'll add tonight's thoughts at the bottom.

Drive (2011)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Cary Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, Albert Brooks

From: FilmDistrict

Here’s a movie I’ve been hearing a lot about this month. After some people saw it, they lost their minds and unleashed some rather strong statements about how great the movie was, calling it a classic and that sort of thing. Always a skeptic, I wasn’t sure what to think. I know that I enjoyed the 80’s motif the movie had and what I heard of the soundtrack was awesome, as it was 80’s synth pop and that’s always a good thing.

Last night I finally went and saw the movie to see if the hype was warranted. Before I get to the film itself, I have to mention that I thought I would get to see it with no problem as I went to the local Cineplex which is usually not a busy place; some other people were at the screening also and as it’s Florida, a few of those people were Troglodytes and just acted stupid. I swear that my opinion on the movie was not colored by my less than ideal experience while watching said movie.

To try and be brief, this is about a stunt car driver named Driver (Gosling) who also does some side jobs which could be called less than ethical, although he also works for a mechanic pal (Cranston). He meets up with a neighbor (Mulligan) and her young son. Her jailbird husband (Oscar Issac; for some reason his name is Standard; was he named after Standard Oil?) comes back from prison. He quickly gets himself into trouble so Driver tries to help him out to be nice to his new lady pal and her son. The fit hits the shan, and… but I don’t want to give too much else away, except that some unsavory characters are seen (Perlman and Brooks, both delivering memorable performances).

One thing I can say right away is that everyone there to see the film-me included-were quite surprised at just how violent this was. There are some REALLY graphic moments. From what I could tell, the rest of the crowd did not seem to care for how the movie turned out. Me, I had a more positive view on it although I didn’t find it to be a classic or the best movie of the year or anything of that sort.

What I did like were the performances in general. This is the first movie I’ve seen Gosling in and I was really impressed. He wore an awesome silver scorpion jacket. The story was always interesting throughout. The 80’s synth music (actually modern songs with that particular sound) was tremendous and was an asset to the film. However…

This was artsy-fartsy at times; you know, long takes, silence, and that sort of thing. At times, even I was wondering why it was taking so long to get to the point. Even I was turned off by how graphic some of the scenes were. But it has to be made clear that this is one downbeat and dour tale. I don’t have a problem with that necessarily; it’s just that you should be prepared that this is the sort of story that isn’t cheery and happy. For you Christina Hendricks fans, her role in the movie isn’t as large as her che… er, I mean as large as has been advertised.

I also had some issues with how the last 15 minutes or so turned off; I can’t really explain it without giving away big spoilers; I just thought it wasn’t as good as what preceded it. You should also note that the movie doesn’t have as many car chases as you’d think given the subject matter; it’s a shame, given that what chases you do see are well-done.

So, this isn’t something I disliked by any means. I’m sure this will end up on the list of the 10 best movies I’ve seen this year (if only because I haven’t seen as many movies as others) but this definitely isn’t the best movie I’ve seen all year, like a lot of people are thinking.

I’ll be back Sunday evening with a new review.

Alright, now that I've seen it for a second time... I did not think the movie was as slow as the first time. I was fine with it taking its time and the first hour seemed to fly by. I still dug the performances, the awesome score, and it just looks very pretty, cinematography-wise. It was well filmed in terms of appearance, in other words.  It has a great style. Knowing that there would be bursts of graphic violence, I was fine with that too. However, the reservations I have with how the movie ended are still present. There's just some goofiness that I wish wasn't present, and a shot that is stretched out for reasons unclear to me. While I wish I could love it and give it 5 out of 5 stars at sites like Letterboxd, I suppose I'll have to give it a 4 there, due to the strength of a number of aspects; I just wish I did not have those complaints and I wish those things would have been different.

Oh, and there's the theory that the reason why The Driver says little and acts aloof: he has Asperger Syndrome. When I watched it tonight I looked at it that way... if you don't view the movie in that fashion it does not really change things; I am just saying it is a reasonable explanation as to why Driver acts the way he does. It's more a fun "alternate film theory" than something that I am 100% sure is true.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

A Funny Story

I'll do my usual review tomorrow night, but tonight I do have a quick funny bit to mention. This afternoon I walked into the living room and I saw my mom watching something on Spike TV... Piranha 3D! I reviewed that back in '10, and besides me not knowing how you could make a coherent TV-14 edit of that movie for regular cable TV, that is not the type of movie I'd ever imagine her watching. She did not see all of it, but what she saw, her reaction was "oh man" and "wow", which was expected. She'd be horrified if she saw it in its original form. I used similar terms to describe the R-rated version, but for different reasons! I rented the Blu-Ray and soon I'll show her the opening scene; I imagine she'd get a kick out of it as she's a big Jaws fan.

Like I said, I'll be back tomorrow night.

Confessions Of An Opium Eater

Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962)

Runtime: 85 minutes

Directed by: Albert Zugsmith

Starring: Vincent Price, Linda Ho, Richard Loo, June Kyoto Lu

From: Photoplay

My apologies but I had to leave before I was able to post it in the afternoon, thus it getting posted in the evening.

Sometimes, I review some pretty damn obscure movies. This happens to be one of them. I found out about it on a messageboard, where someone posted a link to another site that talked about it. It was put out recently by the online service Warner Archive; I did not see it that way. It's easily found on the most popular streaming site for free, although I presume the Warner Archive copy looks better than what is available on Yo... I mean, that one streaming site.

It's based on an autobiographical novel from 19^th century author Thomas deQuincey, although the movie is about a later relative of deQuincey (Price) and his adventures in early 20^th century San Francisco, where you can see someone driving an early automobile like a Model T and fire a Thompson submachine gun. To copy and paste the plot from the IMDb, corrected by me: “Gilbert de Quincey is an early 20th-century adventurer involved with helping runaway slave girls and victims of a tong war in San Francisco. Garbed in black from head to toe, de Quincey narrates his adventures. At the slave auction where beautiful Oriental girls are displayed in hanging bamboo cages, de Quincey befriends a tiny wisecracking female Oriental dwarf.”

Yes, a TINY WISECRACKING FEMALE ORIENTAL DWARF. I can confirm this is the case; that woman ruled. And this plot is from a movie released 51 years ago! The filmmaking world was so different back then and something like this got released, where you have Price high on opium on drug trips, is pretty surprising to me. Also, this movie is pretty damn weird, in case you coudn't tell already. It took me some time to get what was going on; it didn't help that the IMDb description wasn't entirely accurate. But once I got it, I thought this movie was entertaining. It's more weird than good, but it isn't awful. There is comedy from all the flowery lyrical dialogue/narration (and situations) and odd situations you see. The definite highlight was the aforementioned drug trip that Gilbert goes on, where he smokes some opium, sees a lot of different animals on the drug trip, and then he has to run away from the bad guys and to show the effects of the drugs, the film is in slow motion, which was a nice touch.

As you can tell from the cast listing, most of the cast is legit Asian-American actors; that was great for them giving the film industry back then and how it was common to have white people in “Yellowface” as Asians. And beforehand I had heard that there were eerie similarities between this and Big Trouble in Little China. I hadn't seen the latter in too long but from what I remember, I understand the comparison as more than once there were parallels. Someone with Little China must have been familiar with this. 

I'll be back Saturday night.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (Shao Lin San Shi Liu Fang) (1978)

Runtime: 115 minutes

Directed by: Chia-Liang Liu

Starring: Chia Hui Liu, Lieh Lo, Wang Yu, Chia Yung Liu, Norman Chu

From: Shaw Brothers

I did say last week that I needed to see more movies from the legendary Shaw Brothers Studio, and I might as well watch the one that may be their most famous, or at the very least one of their most famous and also one of the most highly regarded. Also, the director passed away late last month and he was an important figure for the studio, being a director and martial arts choreographer for a number of movies. So yeah, this wasn't a difficult one to select out of the vast numbers of movies that have to be out there on YouTube and more secret places.

The plot, lifted from the IMDb as if I was Spiderbaby although at least I admit to when I lift material: “The anti-Ching patriots, under the guidance of Ho Kuang-han, have secretly set up their base in Canton, disguised as school masters. During a brutal Manchu attack, Lui manages to escape and devotes himself to learning the martial arts in order to seek revenge. In a short period of time he masters the deadly use of his fists, feet and palms, along with such weapons as swords, sticks, and lances. With his learning complete, he takes on the Manchus.”

Sure, this movie has nice action scenes that still are fine to watch 35 years later, but this movie is about how San Te (this movie is loosely based on a real-life dude) enters the Shaolin temple and at first he doesn't do well learning the ways of the monks there, but through determination and his sheer talent, he ends up doing well as he goes through all the chambers, which are various tasks he has to master in order to make him a supreme fighting machine, such as running across a small body of water that has logs without falling off, carrying pails of water, and other tasks that help with such things as balance, coordination, and strength.

The movie is about The Hero's Journey, to use a fancy term that screenwriters learn. You see someone start out at the bottom and he trains and trains until he is great. The movie spends quite a bit of time with the training aspect and it's always entertaining as the tasks are wacky and yet awesome at the same time. He's a very quick learner so San Te certainly comes off as a great badass. The villains are tremendous bastards so you'll definitely want to see their comeuppance. It should not be a surprise that Te wants to learn to fight to help the people and that is exactly what he ends up doing. I now understand why many people hold this in high regard as it's great entertainment and it's just fun to watch.

I'll be back Thursday afternoon.

Today's A Day For Podcasts

This is what I've realized today, as I am listening to one long one now and there's one being recorded live tonight that is being shown on a Google Hangout, so I'll save any movie reviewing for tomorrow night, when I should have the time to post something, even if said post doesn't go up until technically Wednesday morning.

Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim (2013)

72% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 204 reviews)

Runtime: 132 minutes

Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman

From: Warner Brothers

I'll be honest, when I first heard that this was going to be a movie, I wasn't sure what to expect of it. The plot sounded wacky but definitely cool, giant mechs vs. the type of kaiju monsters that Godzilla fought. I haven't seen as much of Tel Toro's filmography as others, to again be honest. Finally, earlier in the year I started to get pumped up for it and I suddenly was glad that it was here; the fact that I didn't feel like watching anything in the theatre last month was also a factor.

The plot, taken from the Letterboxd page for the movie: “When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed-up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)—who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind's last hope against the mounting apocalypse.”

I won't be giving too much away, but even with some minor quibbles that I wish would have been different or not done at all, overall I rate this rather highly... to the point that as of this moment this is my movie of the year. Yep, even more so than Fast & Furious 6. I will explain why.

This is not a soulless bloated dour serious mindless action movie, like you seemingly get from the typical summer blockbuster, and it's also not a stupid movie. You start off with an explanation of what happened and then get an action scene. After that you spent some time getting to know all of the characters, and they're certainly colorful characters. There's a lot of arguing, but it's not tiresome as a lot of it is fun and it makes sense for the situations as all of these people are in a bad spot and you get to see how everyone deals with it.

A lot of the movie is set in the Hong Kong of the future, and it inspires me to mention how I loved the look of the movie, from the mech design to the creature design, the colorful look of the city and yep, the bitchin' fights between the mechs and the kaiju, all of which are clear to see and follow (no shaky-cam crap nor quick editing garbage). This is simply a lot of fun as there's humor throughout and you enjoy the characters and their adventures.

So, of course it underperformed at the box office. Losing to a kids' movie is one thing, but Grown Ups 2? That is quite unfortunate, as that sequel looks absolutely atrocious and apparently is worse than it looks. Sigh... I guess that too many people found the Rim of Pacific to be “weird” or what have you (or how it doesn't star "an A-list actor" or what have you), even though I say that anyone who enjoys grand adventures and awesome fights should enjoy the hell out of this fine, fine motion picture.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

The Battle Wizard

Battle Wizard (Tian Long Ba Bu) (1977)

Runtime: 77 minutes (although the copy I had was only 73 minutes long)

Directed by: Hsueh Li Pao

Starring: Danny Lee, Ni Tien, Chen Chi Lin, Kwok Kuen Chan

From: Shaw Brothers

Yep, after all this time I have finally reviewed my first Shaw Brothers film. Heck, this is the first one I've ever seen from the legendary Hong Kong film studio of old. I believe I have seen a clip or two of it before and heard discussion of it on a messageboard but I was motivated to talk about it after it was featured on the Total Film website in a great article of “50 Amazing Films You've ProbablyNever Seen”, where I hadn't even heard of many of the entries and before tonight I had only seen one of them, which was Viy.

Their description for the movie made me want to see it. To copy and paste what they wrote up:

“20 years after having his legs cut-off by a warrior's laser-fingers, an evil wizard takes revenge by sending his lobster-clawed henchman to capture his enemy's son Tuan Yu, who has no interest in fighting. Encouraged by a woman who throws snakes at people, Tuan Yu embarks on a quest to learn fighting skills.

This film also involves a scrap with a giant snake, a frog which can make you invincible if you swallow it, and a kung fu gorilla. And a wizard with metal chicken legs who can breathe fire.”

All that they said on Total Film is true. All of this insanity actually happened. The evil wizard was the guy who had metal chicken legs and he did breathe fire. There's also things like knives being fired out of what looks like a giant bone, that lobster-clawed henchman being some sort of mutant, some really wacky stop-motion animation, and a snake that carries a message as if it's a pigeon.

Sure, the martial arts scenes you get are all fine, but it's obvious that you should see it for how damn strange it is, as believe me it is as strange as it sounds from description. It shoud be noted that Tuan Yu is a goofball (at least in the first half, before he swallows that frog) while he gets helped by snake-throwing dame and a kung fu master girl (the one who fires those knives out of the giant bone). A gender reversal, which is fine by me. Overall... what a weird movie, but an entertaning one. It has quite the hysterial ending too, where the special effects go wild.

Sometime in the future I do need to see more films from the Shaw Brothers Studio. Those include the weird ones like the infamous Crippled Avengers/Crippled Masters/The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms or whatever you want to call it along with their more normal fare that isn't supernatural or bizarre in nature. 

I'll be back Sunday night, where I plan on giving my review of Pacific Rim.

Robot Jox

Robot Jox (1989)

Runtime: 85 minutes

Directed by: Stuart Gordon

Starring: Gary Graham, Anne-Marie Johnson, Paul Koslo, Robert Sampson, Michael Alldredge

From: Empire Pictures

I figured it was most appropriate to watch this tonight. You see, since people found out what Pacific Rim was all about (people controlling giant robots... techically controlling giant mechs but you get the point... vs. kaiju monsters like what Godzilla fought in the past), they compared it to this low-budget movie, where giant mechs fight against each other in what is otherwise a cheesy but wildly entertaining motion picture. I've seen this before but watching it again for a proper review was the prudent thing to do. By the end of the weekend I will have seen Pacific Rim and I am hoping it's as awesome as it looks.

As for this movie, here's the plot, “borrowed” from the IMDb: “It is post-World War III. War is outlawed. In its place, are matches between large Robots called Robot Jox. These matches take place between two large superpowers over disputed territories. The main character Achilles is a pilot in one of the large Robots. The plot revolves around him and a match for the state of Alaska.”

I already mentioned how it's pretty much a standard fighting film like the boxing pictures of old, where a guy trains against a big bad guy for a giant fight and hopefully the hero can defeat evil. Here, it's the same thing except that people fight with giant mechs. Otherwise, there's what you may expect, such as infighting amongst the camp, campy villains (the Soviets; yeah, it wasn't too long after this came out that it became dated), a woman being in the ranks and there being resentment about it, and so on and so forth. The phrase “crash & burn” gets used often, which I believe is original to this movie.

There's the character known as Tex (Alldredge), a guy who handles tactics among the team that assists the people controlling the mechs, and he is awesome. He wears a cowboy hat and needless to say he is totally stereotypical. Sure, many stereotypes are present here but Tex is the biggest one. He's a chubby dude and he shoots his mouth off; he is crude and sexist and he has issues with his co-worker, apparently because he's Japanese. That is probably not the type of character you see today because it's “not politically correct” or what have you. There are other silly characters, including one played by cult actor Jeffrey Combs.

While this was from a low-budget studio it apparently cost 10 million bucks in late 80's money (there's stop motion animation; you don't see a whole lot of fighting, at least not until the final act  but it's never boring) and Empire Pictures went bankrupt while making it and then went out of business.

Sure, this is cliché all the way but it is SO wacky and entertaining... if you go with it then you'll likely enjoy this slice of cheese from the past; we don't get movies like this anymore, that is for damn sure.

I'll be back Friday night.

The Horde

The Horde (La Horde) (2009)

Runtime: 96 minutes

Directed by: Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher

Starring: Claude Perron, Jean-Pierre Martins, Eriq Ebouaney, Aurelein Recoing

From: Capture The Flag Films

Yep, I am returning to the world of recent French horror, even though every one of the movies in that category I've seen, I've not really liked at all and I thought were really overrated, despite what many hardcore horror fans think otherwise. I went with this one as it's on Netflix Instant, I've heard other people give praise to it (despite what I just said about watching other movies that people have praised), and the plot... well...

The plot, stolen from the Instant description: “When four corrupt policemen invade a gangster's hideout near Paris to avenge the death of their colleague, they quickly find themselves outmanned, outgunned and trapped. That is, until a legion of vicious zombies swarms through the building.”

It's important to note that there's really no explanation given for why there's a sudden outbreak of zombies, or how they are able to destroy Paris so quickly (despite them being fast-moving zombies), or heck, why it should be known to everyone early on that it takes a shot to the head to dispose of one of the creatures... that is not even taking into account the zombie lore that everyone knows by now due to how they've become such a popular thing in recent years; in this world, the first undead appears in the room that everyone's in and they shoot him in the body and he's not stopped and it takes a shotgun blast to the dome for it to finally be disposed of, and they can't figure it out with that and additional evidence that's pretty much right in their face? Lord... and there definitely are further plot holes that I won't get into, although I don't know why so many zombies descended upon a condemned building that hardly had anyone in it.

More problems is that the movie really has no sense of humor and I did not like any of the characters at all. I suppose I should have suspected that with the plot I knew of beforehand of there being dirty cops and gangsters, but really, it was difficult for me to care when all of them were stupid and/or A-holes. This wasn't awful and I did not get as mad as I have when watching other recent French horror, but AGAIN, why do these get such praise? I guess they don't work for me, although at least I have explained why I have had big issues with all of those motion pictures.

If you do still want to see it, there certainly is a lot of violence, blood and gore but that was not enough for me to like it. I'll be back Wednesday night and I'll try to be more punctual.

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012)

29% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 21 reviews)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Matthew Diamond

Starring: Creepy human-sized costumed things, plus embarrassed guest stars Cloris Leachman, Chazz Palminteri, Toni Braxton, Cary Elwes, Jaime Pressly, and Christopher Lloyd

From: Kenn Viselman

Yes, I watched a G-rated movie on Netflix Instant tonight. But, this is a movie that became infamous for having the worst box office gross of all time for a film released on at least 2,000 screens, earning barely above one million dollars in total, and that was with it being advertised well enough for me to have seen ads for it on TV before it came out. It was a bizarre-looking thing with some famous faces in the cast who apparently needed the money, and it was made in '09 before coming out late August of last year. The guy who was responsible for this was one of the people who brought The Teletubbies & Thomas the Tank Engine to the United States. With such a story behind it, I was too damn curious and I watched it. WOW

The best way to describe this (basically, it's like Barney mixed with Pee Wee's Playhouse, only really bad) is to describe what I saw, so here you go:

The movie starts off with the three annoying-ass “heroes” we're supposed to follow, which are creepy as hell people in goofy costumes named Goobie, Zoozie, and Toofie. What an annoying A-hole Toofie was! He had blonde hair and always yelled as if he was some sort of surfer or a similar “dude”. Plus, he never wore a belt so several times his pants would fall down. Yeah, he was basically the Theodore Rex of the group.

Anyhow, they have a surprise birthday party for their pink-pillowed friend Schuluufy (yes, literally a pink pillow who sleeps all the time) but their Hoover vacuum pal named J. Edgar loses the 5 magical balloons and the Oogieloves have to go track down all the balloons, but not before singing about pancakes; they get helped by Windy Window, a chick with a Southern accent who has her face in the window and J. Edgar would love it for her... oh wait, I mean he enjoys Ms. Willow. The three go out on their tricycles to get all balloons, and for some reason they bring about a grumpy goldfish named Ruffy, who actually was the highlight of the movie. Think about that.

They visit a giant tree where a valleygirl and her circle-obsessed grandmother (Leachman) live. They teach a lesson that it's OK for a kid to jump out of a tree, as long the balloon they have is “magical”. Somehow, I think that's not a good lesson to teach.

They visit Marvin Milkshake's restaurant; Marvin is poor Palminteri, who acts like Andrew Dice Clay! Well, he goes “oooh!” often. He actually sings about milkshakes. The fish wins the milkshake drinking competition so they get that balloon. Oh, and there's also breakdancing in this scene. Yes.

They then visit a singer played by Toni Braxton. A good actress she is not. They get the third balloon from her.

They then visit a garishly dressed cowboy trucker named Bobby Wobbly (Elwes! I don't know if I've ever felt so sorry for a man) to get the fourth balloon. He is bubble-obsessed; don't ask. He's basically a white Cowboy Curtis, only not as cool as that may sound.

Finally, they visit a pair of flamenco dancers (Pressly and Lloyd; but of course...) who ride around in a giant flying sombrero. No, I am not on drugs, this actually happened, although I think that by this point the scriptwriters were on drugs! Lloyd mainly communicates via striking a bongo. I don't know why either. Anyway, a giant tulip helps get the last balloon down from a windmill. Lloyd threatens the goldfish after Pressly kisses it. Yes.

After that, a contrived thing happened that isn't worth going in-depth on, so the narcoleptic pillow wakes up and the party happens; it enjoyed the balloons and the presents that each guest star gave to a talking narcoleptic pillow. The end.

Overall... despite some of the wacky things I said about the strange shit present in this motion picture, don't watch it and please don't show it to even your youngest kids. I have twin nephews who as of tonight are 6 ½ months old and I wouldn't want them to watch this crap at any age. The story is insulting even to toddlers, the situations are eye-rolling and there are plenty of songs, none of them any good. Your children should watch better programming... how about tracking down old Looney Tunes or Disney cartoons? That's what I watched and loved as a kid and they'd still be great in 2013. Don't show your youngsters this sort of garbage.

I'll be back Monday night.

The Tattoo Connection

The Tattoo Connection (E Yu Tou Hei Sha Xing) (1978)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Tso Nam Lee

Starring: Jim Kelly, Sing Chen, Tao-ling Tan, Bolo Yeung

From: First Films

On this Wednesday night I decided to end my foreign film thing I'm doing for Letterboxd (although of course I'll still watch a decent amount of foreign movies) by bookending it with another movie from Hong Kong, this time from the late 70's. Plus, Wednesday was the 67^th birthday of Bolo Yeung and it is my way of noting the passing of the late Jim Kelly.

The plot, from the IMDb: “When a diamond (the awkwardly named North Pole Star Diamond) is stolen in Hong Kong, the company insuring the diamond sends a former CIA agent to Hong Kong to retrieve it. Meanwhile, one of the thieves begins to have a change of heart because his girlfriend wants him to leave his criminal organization.”

This is just like a typical kung fu movie from the 70's, mainly with the crappy dubbing. But, this is a pretty entertaining film. The plot isn't difficult to follow at all and things move at a decent pace. The score is pretty great in its funky groovy ways, and the action is at least fine. Oh, and there's a lot of nudity, including more than one instance of full-frontal, so for you horny people out there...

The wackiness starts in the final act, where you have such things as dubbed Bolo Yeung singing, someone getting mad because Bolo and his pals were singing, Jim and a ladyfriend dancing to a disco-sounding tune, Kelly drinking a raw egg as “it's the best protein to increase sexual drive” and basically an early form of Viagra, only it kills the person who takes it due to the massive heart rate increase. All of this made me laugh and laugh.

The movie is easy to find on YouTube so if you want some free martial arts action from a movie that is sometimes inaccurately titled Black Belt Jones 2 despite having nothing to do with the first one except for the lead actor, then you should check it out.

I'll be back Friday night and I'll be more punctual. I have quite the movie planned for that.

Deathsport

Deathsport (1978)

Runtime: 82 minutes

Directed by: Allan Arkush, Nicholas Niciphor

Starring: David Carradine, Claudia Jennings, Richard Lynch, Will Walker

From: New World Pictures

I figured that tonight I should watch something different on Netflix, something that I've known about for a long while but I've never seen. This sometimes is called the sequel to Death Race 2000, even though the only similarities is that both are from Roger Corman and are set in dystopian future. That's it.

The plot, stolen from the IMDb: “When the evil Lord Zirpola kidnaps Kaz Oshay and forces him to play his twisted gladiatorial game Deathsport, Oshay must use all of his fighting skills to survive the contest and stop the wicked Zirpola.” Yes, all those names are real. The first part of the plot description is true, but it ends up being that Kaz deals more with Zirpola's underling, Ankar Moor (Lynch). The Deathsport in question is action on motorcycles with goofy cladding on them and they make goofy fake sound effects that were added in after the fact. Sometimes, people with swords do battle with the people on the bikes, and this action is in an arena; yeah, the whole gladiator thing; even with the helmets that are worn. It is in a city ruled by Zirpola; like I said, a dystopian society and most of the land is barren, which makes it easy to film it on the notorious Roger Corman low-budget on the cheap.

The movie is pretty crappy and lame, with none of the satire of Death Race 2000. The first thing you see is Carradine wearing a loincloth carrying a giant plastic sword. Goofy. It's a lame story and the only entertainment value is from laughing at the movie and the “special” effects. Yet, I did not hate it. Carradine apparently was stoned the entire time, according to one of the directors. I have no trouble believing this and I don't blame him. There is a lot to laugh at, and that includes some of the acting. You get to see two women who are fully nude, including former Playmate Jennings. The musical score is synthesizer-based and it's totally wacky, in the best way; AND, there are guitar riffs from JERRY GARCIA. Yes. How they got him and why he did it, I am not sure, but he did. The motorcycle stuff is fine and there are some POV shots from the front of the bike.

At least now I've seen it, but don't expect another Death Race 2000. It's just a crappy low-budget film that nonetheless has its charms. I'll be back Wednesday night.