Archive for the ‘Fantasy/Swords’ Category
Monday, July 15th, 2024
SHE IS CONANN, original title CONANN, is the recently-released-on-disc third film from French director Bertrand Mandico. I previously reviewed and loved his second film AFTER BLUE (DIRTY PARADISE), which I described as being a little bit like if Alejandro Jodorowsky made BARBARELLA. This one is sort of Mandico’s take on Robert E. Howard’s Conan. Very sort of. But the Jodorowsky comparison is even stronger here – it reminded me of the full range from FANDO Y LIS to HOLY MOUNTAIN. This is a crazy one.
Some (including Wikipedia) have described CONANN as “a feminist take on CONAN THE BARBARIAN,” which honestly sounds wonderful, but I don’t think it’s very accurate. Though obviously alluding to the famous barbarian, I don’t see how you can possibly take it as an adaptation of those stories or a genuine attempt at participating in the sword and sorcery genre. It merely brushes against some of that iconography as it leaps out into the cosmos. I laughed when I saw the angry IMDb user reviews – one was titled “Content Fails to Connect to Source material” – because obviously they went in expecting something from the title and couldn’t adjust their take when it turned out it was something else. But I’m not one to talk. I was pretty annoyed at Jean-Luc Godard using Richard Stark’s The Jugger as the supposed basis of MADE IN U.S.A. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: ???, Bertrand Mandico, Elina Lowensohn, Robert E. Howard
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, I don't know | 9 Comments »
Monday, June 3rd, 2024
THE PRIMEVALS is about an expedition to a forgotten land in search of ancient creatures untouched by evolution (but a little bit by aliens), and the incredible thing is that we as viewers are witnessing a similar miracle. The Ray-Harryhausen-esque fantasy film was first conceived and pitched in the late ‘60s by stop motion animators David Allen, Dennis Muren and Jim Danforth, and then had various false starts in the ‘70s and ‘80s, so by the time it was filmed by Allen with funding from Charles Band in 1994 it was already a throwback. Then Full Moon Entertainment’s financial situation stalled the completion of the animation, and the movie was left in limbo when Allen died of cancer in 1999.
You’d think that would be the end of it, but fortunately Allen left the storyboards and puppets with the right person – his friend Chris Endicott, an FX artist for many Full Moon and Marvel pictures. Another couple decades later, through Indiegogo funding and the hard work of many of Allen’s animator and VFX friends, the movie was completed and premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival last summer. I was able to see it a few weeks ago at the Seattle International Film Festival, and I had a great time with it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Charles Band, Chris Endicott, David Allen, Juliet Mills, Ken Ralston, Leon Russom, Randall William Cook, Richard Joseph Paul, stop motion animation, Yeti
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 15 Comments »
Friday, May 17th, 2024
I am a human, but I love those apes and that planet they got. I really have enjoyed the entire PLANET OF THE APES series except for the Tim Burton one. Even that has amazing Rick Baker makeup and a beautifully goofy ending (that everyone else hates). But the original and all its ‘70s sequels are fun in different ways, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES reinvented it surprisingly well, then DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES pushed this incarnation into full on greatness.
This new one KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES builds off of the previous trilogy, but somebody could start here if they wanted to. I was surprised by the prologue, showing the funeral for central character Caesar (with a cameo by Maurice!). But it tells you all you need to know: that a virus made apes smarter, killed most of the humans, and Caesar was the first leader of the apes, but now he’s dead. This story takes place “many generations later,” when apes have established different settlements with their own cultures and Caesar is revered as “the first elder.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amanda Silver, Eka Darville, Freya Allen, Josh Friedman, Kaden Hartcher, Kevin Durand, Lydia Peckham, Neil Sandilands, Owen Teague, Peter Macon, Rick Jaffa, Sara Wiseman, Travis Jeffery, Wes Ball
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 36 Comments »
Thursday, April 4th, 2024
GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE is the fifth of the “Monsterverse” movies, and to me the best one. Don’t get me wrong, I kinda liked the attempt at a serious Spielbergian approach in GODZILLA, and the more fun and colorful (but weirdly nostalgic for Vietnam War imagery?) take of KONG: SKULL ISLAND, and the Hesei nightmare atmosphere of GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS, but my previous favorite was GODZILLA VS. KONG, because it finally went headlong into having cool giant monster fights where you’re still in awe but you get to see what’s going on.
GxK is the first one with a returning director (Adam Wingard, YOU’RE NEXT) and he’s able to hit the ground running and improve on GvK with a crazier mythology and a better-integrated human story. I had a big smile on my face pretty much the whole time, without having to say “Well, too bad they were just traveling in that tunnel for a third of the movie.” My only real complaint is that the great Brian Tyree Henry (WIDOWS) still has a dumb one-joke character to play – a Roland Emmerich type “funny conspiracy guy” updated to have a podcast and a Discord – but he not only gets some laughs but gets to be around the actual monsters this time instead of trapped in a needless b-plot. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Wingard, Anthony Brandon Wong, ASL, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, kaiju, Kaylee Hottle, Monsterverse, Rebecca Hall
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Monster | 36 Comments »
Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
MOON GARDEN (2022) is a strange little fantasy film from writer/director (and also editor, and sound designer, and production designer, and art director, and visual effects artist, and colorist, and animator) Ryan Stevens Harris. Oscilloscope Laboratories gave it an arthouse theatrical run, and recently put it on blu-ray and DVD, and it’s also on Shudder at the moment, though I wouldn’t really think of it as a horror movie.
I realize I’ve written more than one review lately that starts out by saying how simple the concept is, but that seems silly now because this is a simple one. A little girl named Emma (Haven Lee Harris, seven year old daughter of the director) falls down some stairs, goes into a coma, finds herself in a creepy dream world where she can kind of hear things from reality, and sometimes goes into her memories, as she tries to wake up. There’s a little more to it that I will go into in a minute, but mostly it’s not about talking, she doesn’t seem to have much scripted dialogue, the sound effects are more important than most of the words that are spoken. It’s mostly a series of strange experiences, encounters and images, an Alice in Wonderland/RETURN TO OZ type of story, but very DIY, and stylistically and tonally reminiscent of the works of Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay. It also made me think of Phil Tippet’s MAD GOD, though Harris said he hadn’t seen that yet when he was promoting this. And I suppose there’s a trace of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD in there.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Augie Duke, Brionne Davis, Maria Olsen, Morgana Ignis, Ryan Stevens Harris
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 6 Comments »
Thursday, January 25th, 2024
Chen Kaige is an acclaimed Chinese filmmaker I have no familiarity with. Too classy for me, I guess. Now I finally watched one, but not one of his famous ones from the ‘80s or ‘90s, it’s his 14th film, a straight up kung fu movie from 2015 called MONK COMES DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. And the reason is because it’s based on a book by Xu Haofeng, who wrote Wong Kar Wai’s THE GRANDMASTER and directed THE SWORD IDENTITY, JUDGE ARCHER and THE FINAL MASTER. I adore his style and his themes and his two most recent (THE HIDDEN SWORD and 100 YARDS) aren’t available here yet, so I’ll take what I can get.
This is a good one but totally different from those other movies I mentioned. The ones Xu directs have a very artful economy and restraint to them, the compositions and camera movements are often very classical, the fighting styles are uniquely straightforward, often based around quick, simple movements rather than flying around all over the place. Don’t get me wrong, obviously I love flying around all over the place, but I like how distinct this other approach is.
MONK COMES DOWN THE MOUNTAIN is not that. Nor is it a TV movie starring Tony Shalhoub. It’s a big show-offy kung fu fantasy, with lots of digital FX, some of them pretty goofy. It was released in 3D Imax, and (unlike American movies, which are too cowardly to do 3D stuff in 3D movies) you can tell. And it’s often comedic in a broad, muggy kind of way. Xu’s movies tend to have a much dryer humor. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Kwok, Chen Kaige, Danny Chan, Dong Qi, Fan Wei, Jaycee Chan, Ku Huen Chiu, Li Xuejian, Lin Chi-Ling, Pinocchio, Vanness Wu, Wang Baoqiang, Wang Xueqi, Xu Haofeng, Yuen Wah
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024
After THE FAVOURITE gave Yorgos Lanthimos success, acclaim and a game lead actress on a bigger budget than his earlier films, the director aimed those resources at a project he’d been trying to do since 2009: an adaptation of the 1992 novel Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer by Alasdair Gray. While I’ve read that the novel is set in a realistic Victorian London, Lanthimos has turned it into a colorful (and sometimes black-and-white) gothic cartoon world, with shades of Tim Burton and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, maybe a little BABE: PIG IN THE CITY, while retaining his cock-eyed view, dark humor and fascination with chaotic people upending social mores. POOR THINGS was nominated for Oscars for best picture, director, adapted screenplay, actress, supporting actor, makeup, music, costume design, cinematography, editing and production design this morning because they heard I was posting my review today and wanted to try to capitalize on that. I’ll allow it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Emma Stone, Hanna Schygulla, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Margaret Qualley, Mark Coulier, Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Suzy Bemba, Vicki Pepperdine, Willem Dafoe, Yorgos Lanthimos
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Fantasy/Swords | 47 Comments »
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023
Okay, I know after 15 years many people have sort of fallen out of love with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I feel you. Maybe you’re looking forward to a world with fewer comic book movies. Fair enough.
But before you go can I interest you in Indonesia’s answer to the MCU real quick? A few years ago I reviewed the 2019 film GUNDALA, written and directed by Joko Anwar (SATAN’S SLAVES), based on an Indonesian comic book character from the ‘60s. I really liked it, and thought it was cool to see a super hero origin story that’s obviously inspired by the American ones, but based in the history, culture and cinematic traditions of Indonesia. Most specifically, for my tastes, that means it has a whole bunch of really great martial-arts-based action. So I was intrigued that it was meant to kick off something called the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe. In the MCU tradition it even had a little tag at the end introducing the heroine of movie #2 here, SRI ASIH. Then the whole endeavor got delayed by that bastard COVID-19, but it finally made its way to U.S. DVD (but I guess not blu-ray) this week under the insulting title SRI ASIH: THE WARRIOR.
Anwar is the executive producer of the whole series, and he co-wrote this one with its director, Upi Avianto (HIT & RUN), just credited as Upi. Pevita Pearce (MAY THE DEVIL TAKE YOU) stars as Alana, whose mom died giving birth to her four months early, during a volcanic eruption, in a car being chased by a demon-faced ash plume. So Alana grew up in an orphanage defending others from bullies until a rich lady named Sarita (Jenny Chang, also a mother in competing Indonesian comic book universe movie SATRIA DEWA: GATOTKACA) adopted her and taught her to be a fighter, who competes against men and is undefeated. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bumilangit Cinematic Universe, Chicco Jerikho, Christine Hakim, Dimas Anggara, Jenny Chang, Joko Anwar, Pevita Pearce, Revaldo, Reza Rahadian, Upi Avianto, Uwais Team, Very Tri Yulisman
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Fantasy/Swords | 6 Comments »
Monday, November 27th, 2023
SAKRA is Donnie Yen’s 2023 passion project, which he stars in and co-directed (with Kam Ka-Wai, second assistant director of IP MAN 1 and 2). It’s a wuxia story based on a famous novel with the tough-sounding title Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils by Jin Yong.
Yen stars as Qiao Feng, an orphan raised by a couple in the Song Empire. He grows up to become the leader of the powerful Beggar Gang, whose legendary badassness is introduced in one of those classic scenes where somebody is being an asshole in public and our guy is quietly listening for a while and then gets inolved (see also: Blue Eye Samurai). A monk (Tsui Siu-Ming, KUNG FU KILLER) comes to this restaurant dragging a cage he says contains an “unruly” person he’s going to sacrifice, and Qiao Feng is sitting at a table on the balcony of a whole different establishment across the way when he starts loudly talking shit without even looking at him. The monk is like “What the fuck – is that guy talking to me?” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cheung-Yan Yuen, Cya Liu, Donnie Yen, Kam Ka-Wai, Kenji Tanigaki, Ray Lui, Tsui Siu-Ming, Wu Yue, wuxia
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 17 Comments »
Thursday, November 9th, 2023
I think it’s safe to say that Olga Kurylenko is one of our reigning Queens of Action. She’s been in the trenches for many years, in many different sizes of roles and films (HITMAN, MAX PAYNE, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, OBLIVION, THE NOVEMBER MAN, SENTINELLE, THE PRINCESS, EXTRACTION II), and she only seems to get better and better, especially when she’s headlining.
Like some of her male counterparts she has unattainable looks but such a strong screen presence she can still read as tough and/or relatable. She’s often required to portray a wider range of emotions than the fellas usually are, while also looking good kicking and stabbing and scowling. And in the tradition of Scott Adkins and others, when they finally put her in one of the big super hero movies (BLACK WIDOW) they gave her kind of a ho-hum character unworthy of her abilities. So she’s definitely one of our people. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: barbarians, Clive Standen, Dominiquie Vandenberg, female barbarians, historical drama, Jesse V. Johnson, Leo Gregory, Lucy Martin, Nick Moran, Olga Kurylenko, Peter Franzen
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords | 14 Comments »
