Legend of the Eight Samurai
I knew right away that LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI (1983) was gonna be interesting because the cosmic opening credits are backed by an English language rock song that would feel right at home in NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER. It’s called “White Light” and it was recorded specifically for the movie by John O’Banion, lead singer of Doc Severinsen’s band Today’s Children and winner on the pilot episode of Star Search.
The guitar solo starts over the director credit for Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY), then abruptly fades out and we get this beautiful matte shot of an army, a castle and a red sky…
…with a big orchestra playing something more like you’d expect in a period samurai movie. The music is credited to six different people and veers between styles, mostly to my taste except when it resorts to keyboard horn sounds vaguely mimicking themes from STAR WARS, which seems pretty cheap. Mostly this is an extravagant affair, though, a lushly produced fantasy epic with colorful costumes, huge crowds of armored extras carrying spears and banners, atmospheric sets built on four giant soundstages, and a wicked queen to put the one from SNOW WHITE to shame. (read the rest of this shit…)
Mickey 17
MICKEY 17 is one of those lucky breaks humanity gets every once in a while where for some reason some American company gives South Korean master Bong Joon Ho (THE HOST, PARASITE) a whole bunch of money for a big, weird, wonderful English-language goof that they have no idea how to make money off of. The fucking Weinsteins did it as distributors of SNOWPIERCER, Netflix did it with OKJA, now it’s Warner Bros.’ turn with a movie that shares elements with both of those but speaks directly to this specific era of capitalistic exploitation, idiotic cults of asshole personality, and just all-around reckless stupidity. But in a fun sci-fi way. It’s based on the 2022 novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, but its sensibilities are unmistakably Bong Joon Ho.
Robert Pattinson (THE ROVER) stars and narrates as the 17th clone of Mickey Barnes, a harmless doofus who, in debt to a loan shark over his failed macaron business, tries to flee by signing up as an “expendable” on a flight to colonize the snowy planet Niflheim. This is not a common line of work – everybody acts shocked when he writes it on the form, and keeps double-checking that he read the paperwork. Basically, nobody’s been stupid enough to sign up before, but he agreed to it out of ignorance and because a lady’s shampoo scent reminded him of his mom. He admits this with embarrassment but also like he’s telling a funny story you might be able to relate to. (read the rest of this shit…)
March 2025 sci-fi (ish) double feature: ASH and THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP
Today instead of one regular-sized review I have two fun-sized looks at movies I saw in theaters last week. They are not making much money and might not last long, but I support the theatrical experience (please clap).
ASH is a low budget sci-fi movie produced by Shudder and directed by Flying Lotus, who I’m a little familiar with as a musician, but I have to confess I couldn’t make it very far into his previous cinematic effort, KUSO (2017). This doesn’t happen to me often but it was just too gross with its pervy opening segment about pustules and stuff. By comparison this one is normal and tolerable, but it still makes sense coming from the same director.
Eiza González (BLOODSHOT, CUT THROAT CITY, AMBULANCE) stars as Riya, a space traveler of some kind who wakes to find her ship in emergency mode, her entire crew dead (including one with a kitchen knife in his chest), not remembering what the fuck happened, or even who she is at first. She medicates herself to calm down (a patch that lights up when she puts it on her neck – nice future tech), wanders out onto the desolate planet where they’ve landed, looks up at cosmic mandalas in the sky, has little scary blips of flashbacks and begins to slowly remember some of the events leading up to this, including bonding with crew members Clarke (Kate Elliott, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT), Kevin (Beulah Koale, DUAL), Davis (Flying Lotus himself), and the captain, Adhi (oh shit, it’s Iko motherfuckin Uwais, MERANTAU, THE RAID, HEADSHOT, BEYOND SKYLINE, THE NIGHT COMES FOR US, TRIPLE THREAT, SNAKE EYES, FISTFUL OF VENGEANCE). (read the rest of this shit…)
The Wicked City (1992)
THE WICKED CITY (1992) is the Hong Kong version of WICKED CITY. I’m honestly not sure if it’s meant to be based on the anime or on the novels that the anime is based on, because it’s pretty different. It’s written and produced by the great Tsui Hark in a prolific year; 1992 saw the release of three movies he wrote, produced and directed (TWIN DRAGONS, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA II and THE MASTER) and two others that he wrote and produced (SWORDSMAN II and NEW DRAGON GATE INN). Jeez, man, slow down.
As usual, there are claims that Tsui directed some of this himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if he second unit-ed some of the crazy action shit, but let’s not POLTERGEIST the actual director, who is Mak Tai Kit, a.k.a. Peter Mak (THE LOSER, THE HERO).
It opens in Japan (city unspecified in English subtitles of the DVD I watched), with a pared down remix of the anime’s opening. It skips the hero picking up the woman in a bar, replacing that character with a demon disguised as a prostitute named Perrier (Reiko Hayama, FEMALE NINJA MAGIC CHRONICLES), who does the kissing-while-going-up-an-elevator shot. In this version the john (Leon Lai from Ronny Yu’s SHOGUN & LITTLE KITCHEN) already knows what she is, goes into the bathroom and loads a gun before she sprouts claws and long legs – it’s genuinely very cool monster FX, though they’re unable to move her around enough to be nearly as creepy as in the animated version. Also there’s no venus flytrap snatch snapping at him. The same mistake most movies make. (read the rest of this shit…)
Wicked City (1987)
After enjoying NINJA SCROLL I thought I should go back and check out the first feature film from writer/director/designer Yoshiaki Kawajiri, WICKED CITY (1987). This one takes place in the then-future of the late ‘90s, but it has kind of a noir feel – the hero wears a tie, smokes often, drives around at night and falls for beautiful, dangerous women (in this case they are literally demons).
I thought from the title it would be a dystopian hellscape type city, but it’s more like idealized ‘80s yuppie Shibuya, with our handsome hero Taki going to a nice little bar where he knows the bartender well and both are surprised that a beautiful regular named Kanako has agreed to leave with him.
(read the rest of this shit…)
The Huntsman: Winter’s War
Like I’ve been saying, I’ve been jonesing for the low-falutin 21st century studio fantasy movies lately. Disney has that new live action remake of SNOW WHITE that just came out, and that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about, but it reminded me that I always kinda wanted to see HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR, the 2016 sequel to the 2012 non-Disney SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN. What I remembered about that one is mainly that it was kinda boring but looked really great and that Charlize Theron (BATTLE IN SEATTLE) was fun as the evil queen. I don’t remember anyone liking it even as much as me, but it was a hit and they made a sequel that I also don’t remember anyone liking. But I’m here to report that it’s okay! I sorta enjoyed it.
It’s a little bit like a 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE approach of doing both a prequel and a sequel. It opens with a long prologue set “long before happily ever after,” according to the voice of Qui Gonn Jinn, who thoroughly narrates the movie from within the force. One historic moment we see is part 1’s wicked stepmother Queen Ravenna (Theron, YOUNG ADULT) poison her husband (Robert Portal, PAINTBALL MASSACRE), and honestly you gotta respect the showmanship of timing it so he dies right after queen takes king in their chess game. He could’ve died in the middle of the game, or she could’ve been stuck having to win with a knight or a rook, or lost altogether… there are just so many ways she could’ve blundered, but she took the risk and she executed it all flawlessly. Hats off. (read the rest of this shit…)
Center Stage/Center Stage: Turn It Up/Center Stage: On Pointe
When I was doing my reviews leading up to the Oscars I thought about watching CENTER STAGE, the ballet movie that was the big screen debut of Zoe Saldaña, who ended up winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for EMILIA PÉREZ (where she also danced). But I decided not to rush it because I knew myself and that I would end up wanting to watch both of its straight-to-cable sequels. Now I have done that and I present to you my review of the entire CENTER STAGE trilogy.
CENTER STAGE (2000)
Directed by Nicholas Hytner (THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE)
Written by Carol Heikkinen (EMPIRE RECORDS)
Choreographer: Susan Stroman (Director/choreographer of THE PRODUCERS [2005])
The first CENTER STAGE picture introduces us to the American Ballet Academy, an elite (fictional) New York City ballet school run by revered stick-up-his-ass choreographer/director Jonathan Reeves (Peter Gallagher, SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE), who turns each year into a cutthroat competition between the students. Their education culminates in their performances in workshops that will help the faculty decide which three boys and three girls will be invited to join Jonathan’s very prestigious American Ballet Company. From the speech he gives on day one it kind of sounds like this school will be the golden ticket to dance stardom for a handful of students, and a miserable, torturous waste of time, energy and money for everybody else. Most of them. Almost all of them. And they should all be ashamed of themselves. Okay, good talk! (read the rest of this shit…)
Black Bag
BLACK BAG is the latest-latest from prolific retiree Steven Soderbergh. I’m mad at myself that I didn’t see his ghost movie PRESENCE in theaters last month, so I wasn’t gonna miss this. It’s one of his clever, expertly-executed genre exercises, this time reinventing the spy movie. The novelty is that it works completely as an exciting espionage thriller, with betrayals, murder, interrogations, trickery, etc., but done on a small scale, in a mere 2 (two) countries, centering around two dinner party scenes. And that flows naturally out of the fact that the main characters are a happily married couple. (And that it’s not about either of them being kidnapped.)
There is an issue, though. When George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender, JONAH HEX) is handed a list of five agents who may have stolen a top secret software called Severus, the list is made up of two couples he knows and his wife Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchettt, HANNA). He has one week to identify the traitor, and he begins his investigation by inviting the suspects all over for dinner and getting them talking. (The channa masala is drugged.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Zeiram
ZEIRAM is a goofy but entertaining Japanese sci-fi movie from 1991. I always thought it was based on an anime or manga, but now I’ve learned that the six episodes of Iria: Zeiram the Animation were a tie-in that came out the same year, like CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: DARK FURY or VAN HELSING: THE LONDON ASSIGNMENT. But obviously there is some anime influence going on with some of the futuristic armor and weird creatures and stuff, which are given more consideration than the plot, so it might as well be a live action anime adaptation.
Zeiram (Mizuho Yoshida, who later played Gojira in GODZILLA, MOTHRA AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK) is the name of a villainous alien on a rampage. He looks like a guy with a Boushh-style slit mask and a wide brimmed hat. The hat has a little kabuki-white face on the front that sometimes looks like a doll head, but in closeup appears to be a living person. Sometimes it extends on a long wormy neck. Eventually it’s revealed that he’s a “forbidden biological weapon,” and the “hat” is actually Zeiram, the rest is a biomechanical attachment. He’s basically a manta ray driving a mech! Spoiler. (read the rest of this shit…)
Dirty Angels
DIRTY ANGELS is not the newest Martin Campbell joint – that’s CLEANER starring Daisy Ridley – but the one from 2024, now on DVD in Canada. I don’t exactly know the events that shifted Mr. Campbell from A-lister who kicked off the last two eras of 007 and did the motherfuckin MASK OF ZORRO to journeyman in the trenches making barely released, mostly generic but pretty cool female-driven action movies, but I’m not gonna knock it. There are many worse trajectories to take in life.
This one is Afghanistan War Movie #562 (set as the war is ending, like most of them now), but the female stars and commando nature of the conflict do make it stand out a little. You have your vicious terrorist leader (George Iskandar), local contacts and lack of trust, but there are no raids on houses, it’s low on desert, and it’s about rescuing hostages ISIS abducted from an all girls school in Pakistan. Can’t object to that cause. (read the rest of this shit…)
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