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Fighting Elegy star Hideki Takahashi is Tetsu, an assassin whose life is saved by artist Kenji (star of Black Snow, not that one). Broke, our guys try to find anonymous manual work, but get tangled up with women and get themselves noticed (and implicated in murders and explosions). Kenji sketches the boss’s wife naked, which doesn’t go over well with the boss, and now Tetsu has to avenge his stupid brother. Suzuki brings mad style to the final ten minutes – which is an improvement over the one…
La Disco Resplandece (2016, Chema Garcia Ibarra) Kids hangin’ out movie, getting into harmless trouble (breaking into a former dance club, arriving sleepless and temp-tattooed to a serious ceremony the next day). Common directorial themes I can connect to the feature include UFOs, but unfortunately not cockatiels. – Boogie Woogie Sioux (1942, Alex Lovy) Not amusing enough to be worth all the dated racism, story of a native tribe on a hot day and the rain-dance band that fortunately is driving…
Corey Atad: It works for several reasons. The Fonda family’s history in the colonies dating back to the 1600s, for one, giving the project a remarkable historical breadth. But there’s also something to Fonda being born as The Movies begin to take shape, with a career spanning the real golden eras of Hollywood filmmaking. He becomes, in the context of this film, a figure through which to understand America’s good spirit, and how it lost out to America’s evil delusions. After convincing us for…
Having a difficult movie month here. Seijun Suzuki and The Cannibals were the best movies I’ve watched lately, but this one was the smartest decision. How do you follow up those, plus some major docs, a Jerry Lewis, the Arbuckles, the end of the Szulkin apocalypse series, and my big Cinema Scope roundup? With some brilliant late Cohen nonsense, of course. Gang: Janine Turner (Northern Exposure, Cliffhanger) collapses while large-faced Eric Roberts is harassing her. But Eric is no casual…
In 1987 a middle-aged guy loves to spend time on the computer. He and his dog watch A Nightmare On Elm Street on broadcast television then “wake up” inside a customized fantasy videogame, rescuing a guy with a TV head and traveling by map. Once the movie gets into game mode, I flashed back to Hundreds of Beavers – which was more ambitious but had totally different manic vibes to this movie’s good-natured dreamscape.
Our guy is a notorious artist of sexy paintings (pop star Kenji Sawada has made good movie choices, playing leads in Hiruko the Goblin, Mishima, and Happiness of the Katakuris). His pretty young beloved is sick at home with her parents, wants to elope but not right now, so Yumeji enjoys a heavy romp with a prostitute, picks up another artist’s model, and becomes obsessed with a widow(?) and her bizarre story, until her husband (the crazy guy from Zigeunerweisen, even crazier) arrives and chases…
Another concert compilation film, this one taken from multiple years of folk fests. PP&M sing their hit song about having a hammer and a couple Dylan tunes, but more importantly Mary appears to have two moles on her neck in a vampire bite pattern. Seeger sings about creamed corn, some bluegrass guys tear it up, some blues guys chill it out. Joan Baez gets the best lines during an autograph session and an after-show interview, including telling fans “don’t get so hysterical,” which hits hard in…
Leonor falls in love with goth Luis Miguel, then is surprised when he acts all goth on their wedding night. The mismatched couple acts all doomed and stoic, allowing her stalker Diogo Doria and the narrator Oliveira Lopes to be pop-eyed loons in the opera’s background. I had decided that the title must be a metaphor, but for what? Then at the end of the second act, all the lead characters kill themselves, and a new group of men is introduced, who eat Luis Miguel, thinking him part of the bridal…
Ray Milland is a bad husband to Maureen O’Sullivan, working for toxic boss Charles Laughton. When the boss threatens to fire and blacklist Ray from the publishing industry if he leaves for a long-delayed honeymoon, Ray responds by standing up his wife and getting drunk with some strange girl (Rita Johnson, Ray’s fiancee in The Major and the Minor). Coincidentally the strange girl is the boss’s mistress, whom the boss murders that same night, calling in his cleaner Steve (Human Duplicator George…
Half fun and half dark and sour, dude gets out of prison having hidden away the stolen diamonds and tries to use them to help his crippled comrade, gets tangled up with the comrade’s sister, their former bosses go after him, and a ton of guys die. Both leads would return in Take Aim at the Police Van.
The champ, George Foreman, vs. the kid, Muhammad Ali, in Zaire And other politics involved in the affair Including rare footage leading up to the event Plus, interviews with VIPs, remembering the effects … We heard about that legendary clashing of the titans But could never have contextualized the metrics or environment Until, 90 minutes of history And images and music, I was riveted, infinity Listened/half-watched while assembling furniture after turning on Henry Fonda For President and…
Jerry gets a live-in job at a womens boarding house. It’s overwhelming but whenever he tries to sneak out, they tell him he’s important to them, so he stays. Movie has very little story, very few good jokes, but some of the best-ever set design. The girls include Gloria Jean, two decades after hurting WC’s ears in Never Give a Sucker, Billy Wilder regular Hope Holiday, and Kathleen Freeman, the only actor in Fritz Lang’s House by the River to also appear in Shrek. Buddy Lester is quite good as…
Oh Doctor (1917) Arbuckle’s doctor is a horrible man, abusing his son Buster, straying from his wife at any opportunity, and gambling away the family savings on a hunch. Some people try to scam him but he beats them up, steals a bunch of cash, prospers. An evil movie! – The Cook (1918) A whole different thing, Arbuckle & Keaton coordinating impossible stunts in a kitchen with a running gag that all food orders come out of the same giant pot. Sure it gets weird when The Joker arrives at the…
List of things that quicken the heart. Almereyda in Metrograph: The early 2000s happened to be a fallow time for me, and it was consoling to think big while gathering footage with a little camera. Magical things were always materializing, flashing by, almost as if the camera were inviting them to happen.
The ol’ movie blog is almost twenty years old, and for that entire time I’ve been reading Cinema Scope magazine. I subscribed after seeing Guy Maddin on the cover of issue 16 and stayed through Maddin’s cover of the final issue 97. It was a huge influence on what I chose to watch, and how […]
The one where the director watches a scoreless soccer game on TV with his dad, a soccer game his dad coached, and they discuss the game, players, era, and political context… difference in rules and tactics between then (1988) and now, the political implications of this army-vs-police game and the risks of being its referee. […]
The kid is from a forgotten Neverending Story reboot, and has worked consistently. Our director plays the star’s driver/handler, also trying to break into the industry with his experimental film called The Stupidity of God. Good cast, good fun. Matrix Macaulay: Mark Peranson in (of course) Cinema Scope: It takes a while to sink in […]
Kid is visiting Dad, who catches fish and lobsters along the coral reef. I chilled out to the movie’s rhythms, and could’ve fallen asleep if not for this excellent egret. The producer is a powerhouse, the director has some little-seen followup films, and you could (and probably should) watch three of ’em together in the […]
Lovely and delightful, a bunch of the greatest actresses in a color-coordinated single-location murder-mystery musical. I take it Ozon isn’t always good, but I’m thankful to discover that he was ever this good. The ending is a bit cruel (you shouldn’t shoot yourself in front of your kids). Won a cast award at Berlin (you […]
Dream-logic stuff happens, shot in a dreamy way by resurgent Suzuki (his big comeback, according to people who didn’t see A Tale of Sorrow). Story of the titular sound recording where the composer’s voice can be heard on the recording is true, the characters sharing this story are a German professor, a guy named Nakasago […]
I think the movie wants us to root for the cops who are trying to out-brutality each other, versus drug boss Sammo Hung who had the parents of a “cute” child murdered before they could testify against him. I chose to wish righteous death upon everyone onscreen, and nearly got my wish. Each cop has […]
I realized just before hitting play that I meant to grab Manhandled (1924), not Manslaughter (1922), for the series I’m watching. But I haven’t ever named or mentioned this series and I’m accountable to no one, and I’ve got Manslaughter on DVD with an Alloy Orchestra soundtrack, so we’re making a substitution. Ultimately the movie […]
Haven’t seen this in a while… probably De Palma’s best movie, but I’d probably say that about ten different De Palma movies if I’d rewatched them this week. Sound recordist Travolta works at a movie production house with a framed poster of Squirm, rescues Nancy Allen from a car crash, and gradually uncovers her role […]
Sally dances to Morrissey then goes to her room to watch horror movies alone during her own birthday party, relatable. She finds a TV movie about other young people uncovering demons (some idiot hellraisers a dead demon by bleeding into its open mouth) – but this is not the movie Demons. Then a demon videodromes […]
I didn’t need the little robot guy from another movie to get an origin story, but “weirdo pervert stop-motion” is one of my favorite genres, so this was great. Starts with a military unit making their way out of enemy territory, then alternates between rewinding to the same actions from a different character perspective (they […]
Pretty funny that as the Beatles came to the USA playing havoc in the media with their jokey answers to interview questions, Dylan went to England to do the same. This is more of a hotel room hangout movie than expected, and Bob gets aggressive and confrontational. Joan Baez comes across a ton better than […]
