Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022
CUTIE HONEY, like DEVILMAN, is a 2004 live action movie based on a manga character created by Go Nagai. This one is much more comedic than DEVILMAN and comes from a more pedigreed director: Hideaki Anno, the anime auteur behind the Neon Genesis Evangelion series. I would like to try to watch those some day because I know how much people love them, but for now my impression of him comes from the excellent 2016 Godzilla reboot SHIN GODZILLA. That one has a really cool, weird Godzilla in it but is most notable for its really funny satire of bureaucracy (though at the time it came out it also worked for me as an appreciation of people actually trying to pool their knowledge and resources to solve problems). It was recently announced that Anno will be overseeing a shared universe combining his Shin (new) Godzilla with Shin Ultraman and Shin Kamen Rider. But before all that he made a live action movie based on one of the most famous manga by the guy who played the food critic in THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II.
Honey Kisaragi (Eriko Sato, DOOMSDAY: THE SINKING OF JAPAN) is a bubbly young woman who lives alone and works a temp job at an office where everybody hates her except a janitor lady. One interesting fact about Honey is that she’s actually dead but her late father built a robot body for her so her consciousness could survive. Another interesting fact is that she wears a choker with a heart shaped button on it and when she pushes it and says “Honey… FLASH!” she can change her appearance and disguise herself, or she can turn into the sword-wielding super heroine Cutie Honey to battle monsters and stuff. However, she has to eat rice balls and drink green tea to build up the energy to do this stuff, so in the opening she has to run through the streets wearing a garbage bag until she has enough energy to create her work clothes. So it’s not all glamour. It deals with the gritty real life hardships of being Cutie Honey. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Eisuke Sasai, Eriko Sato, Go Nagai, Hideaki Anno, Jun Murkami, live action manga, Mikako Ichikawa
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2022
DEVILMAN (2004) is a live action fantasy-horror-action film based on the manga and anime of the same title created by Go Nagai – that guy who had the cameo as a food critic in THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II. Like THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II, DEVILMAN begins with friendly narration by its hero, in this case Akira Fudo (Hisato Izaki, CROWS ZERO), calmly telling us about his life and adventures.
The story is about a lifelong friendship between clutzy Akira and his more athletic friend Ryo Asuka (Yusuke Izaki, also CROWS ZERO). We see in the opening flashback that as a little kid Ryo “was a bit strange,” meaning he had grey hair, was obsessed with monsters and said he was one of them. Now Akira is known for his awkward smile and Ryo is known for his creepy lack of ever smiling at all. When some jerks at school beat up Akira a guy with long brightly colored braids (Masaki Nishina) warns them that one time he bullied Akira and Ryo came into his class and cut off two of his fingers with hedge clippers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Asuka Shibuya, Ayana Sakai, Bob Sapp, Go Nagai, Hirotaro Honda, Hisato Izaki, J-Pop, manga, Masakatsu Funaki, Masaki Nishina, Yusuke Izaki
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Fantasy/Swords, Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Monday, February 28th, 2022
THE TOXIC AVENGER didn’t catch on right away. Troma had trouble finding many takers, but the Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village showed it as a midnight movie and it was so successful they ran it for more than a year. This secured a cult reputation that helped it become an actual hit on video. But according to the book All I Need To Know About FILMMAKING I Learned From THE TOXIC AVENGER by Lloyd Kaufman and James Gunn, Kaufman never really considered a sequel until a misinformed buyer approached him at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival to secure the German rights to the sequel and he just went along with it.
(Like most of that book I suspect that story is exaggerated, but we know at least that they didn’t rush one into production. In Prince terms, part I is the year of PURPLE RAIN, part II the year of BATMAN. Entirely different eras.)
THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II (1989) picks up where THE TOXIC AVENGER left off, sort of, with the city of Tromaville now peaceful and happy thanks to the Toxic Avenger’s crime fighting. Melvin now has the last name Junko instead of Ferd (no explanation), is nicknamed “Toxie,” and is both played and voiced by Ron Fazio (BASKET CASE 2), except in some scenes where he’s played by John Altamura (“Muscle Man,” YOUNG NURSES IN LOVE) before he was fired for allegedly being a pain in the ass. Toxie’s blind girlfriend Sara is now named Claire (also no explanation) and is played by another musician, Phoebe Legere (MONDO NEW YORK, KING OF NEW YORK). In narration, Toxie explains how he became a “hideously deformed monster hero of super human size and strength” and that the people of Tromaville now enjoy “dancing in the streets, tattooing, manufacturing orange juice, exterminating vermin (this is literally referring to cockroaches and stuff, not Toxie stuffing mops in people’s faces), and watching excellent movies,” which of course is illustrated by a marquee saying “TROMA FILM FESTIVAL,” even though they presumably live in a world where Troma’s best movie does not exist. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, Digital Native Dance, Go Nagai, Jessica Dublin, Lloyd Kaufman, Mayako Katsuragi, Michael Jai White, Phoebe Legere, Rick Collins, Rikiya Yasuoka, Ron Fazio, Tokyo, Troma
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Monster, Reviews | 22 Comments »
Thursday, February 24th, 2022
BENNY’S VIDEO (1992) is a disturbing psychological drama about a teenager whose fascination with violent videos blooms into actual sadistic violence. And you know how it always seems like parents have no idea what their little brats are up to? Well, when this kid’s parents find out about it they don’t have what most would consider a healthy or ethical response. The movie is very dry and unnerving, well made, and easy to read as a judgmental statement by someone who’s completely full of hot air – all trademarks of writer/director Michael Haneke’s early work. I don’t mean to diminish his filmography as a whole, which mostly does not deal with this theme of violent media’s connection to real violence. But this is his sophomore film, coming three years after his acclaimed debut THE SEVENTH CONTINENT and five years before the similarly themed FUNNY GAMES.
It opens with real video footage of a pig being killed with a bolt gun. After it dies, the video rewinds and replays in slow motion. As with FUNNY GAMES, I got the feeling Haneke was saying, “Isn’t it disgusting that you sick fucks watch this shit that I put into a film and advertised and encouraged you to watch?” But in the case of FUNNY GAMES, I gotta concede that I would indeed watch violent movies like that on my own accord. I would not have purposely sat down to watch a video of a pig dying. So you definitely don’t have the high ground on this one, professor. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angela Winkler, Arno Frisch, Austria, Michael Haneke, Ulrich Muhe, Vienna, violence in media
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 17 Comments »
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022
THE TOXIC AVENGER (1984) is a classic of ‘80s smartass b-movies – the ones that carried the drive-in exploitation model of boobs and blood into the VHS era, but did it with a wink. It was directed by Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman, founders of Troma Entertainment. Kaufman had been peripherally involved with respected ‘70s classics including ROCKY, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, but as a filmmaker and distributor he specialized in sex comedies (SQUEEZE PLAY, STUCK ON YOU!, THE FIRST TURN-ON!!) with the occasional horror movie (SILENT NIGHT BLOODY NIGHT, MOTHER’S DAY). But when he combined a little bit of those genres with super hero action he came up with a cult classic, a video hit, a figurehead for the studio, and a house style that he and other low budget smartasses would try to duplicate for decades with – according to my calculations – mostly poor results.
It’s a movie that’s crude in every meaning of the word, it’s in very poor taste, it also makes me laugh quite a bit, and it’s so dorky it feels kind of sweet and well-meaning, despite all kinds of ignorant jokes and requiring a “WARNING: THE TOXIC AVENGER CONTAINS SCENES OF EXTREME VIOLENCE” disclaimer at the beginning. Or maybe that’s all nostalgia because I loved this movie so much growing up, after me and my friends somehow managed to rent a copy while we were in middle school. (I seem to remember it being in an adults only section.) We’d never seen DEATH RACE 2000 and didn’t have driver’s licenses, so we thought the bad guys purposely running over people for “points” was one of the funniest things we’d ever seen. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andree Maranda, Cindy Manion, Dan Snow, Gary Schneider, Jennifer Babtist, Kenneth Kessler, Lloyd Kaufman, Mark Torgl, Michael Herz, Mitch Cohen, Pat Ryan Jr., Robert Prichard, Troma
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Comic strips/Super heroes, Monster | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022
FISTFUL OF VENGEANCE is a new Netflix movie that’s a sequel to the show Wu Assassins. I think I watched two episodes of the show. It stars and is produced and choreographed by the great Iko Uwais, so it had good fights, and it was cool seeing him have a good lead role even speaking English. I also liked the idea of this kind of fantasy in a modern urban world of Triads and stuff. But I spend so much time reviewing movies I have a hard time watching whole shows, and the complicated mythology kinda lost me. Still, I decided to give the movie a shot, and thankfully the references to events from the show are not confusing. It works as a stand alone.
Uwais plays Kai, who on the show was a chef who found out he was a supernatural chosen one called a Wu Assassin who has to kill some magic warlords or whatever. I remember that he would turn into Mark Dacascos sometimes at the beginning of the show, but that doesn’t happen here. He works with a non-supernatural badass named Lu Xin (Lewis Tan, TRUE VENGEANCE, DEADPOOL 2, Into the Badlands, MORTAL KOMBAT) and a smartass former Triad guy named Tommy (Lawrence Kao, MAX STEEL, HONEY: RISE UP AND DANCE) to, I guess fight supernatural threats or something. In the opening scene Kai and Lu Xin are strutting into a cool dance club while Tommy is on a rooftop having champagne with a woman and boasting about himself and his friends, providing us the exposition that they’re trying to find out who killed his sister Jenny. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Francesca Corney, Iko Uwais, Jason Tobin, Juju Chan, Lawrence Kao, Lewis Tan, Netflix, Pearl Thusi, Roel Reine, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam
Posted in Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Monday, February 21st, 2022
“He needs special care, he doesn’t do well outside, you understand.”
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022) – not to be confused with THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) or THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003) – is the new TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE movie released on (but not made by) Netflix. Like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986), LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III (1990), TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION (1995) and TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D (2013) it’s a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterpiece, seeming to ignore all the other installments.
As in the original film, we have a group of young people driving from Austin to a remote Texas town where they don’t fit in. But instead of a pretty casual day trip it’s for a business venture: chefs Dante (Jacob Latimore, SLEIGHT, DETROIT) and Melody (Sarah Yarkin, HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U) purchased a small ghost town at a bank auction, with plans to open a restaurant and turn the town into some kind of hipster enclave. Along for the ride are Melody’s younger sister Lila (Elsie Fisher, EIGHTH GRADE) and Dante’s girlfriend Ruth (Nell Hudson). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alice Krige, Colin Stetson, David Blue Garcia, Elsie FisherNell Hudson, Fede Alvarez, Jacob Latimore, Kim Henkel, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Olwen Fouere, Rodo Sayagues, Sarah Yarkin, slashers, William Hope
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 107 Comments »
Thursday, February 17th, 2022
KIMI is the new straight-to-HoBoMax Steven Soderbergh joint. This one is a tight little thriller written by David Koepp (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, SNAKE EYES, PANIC ROOM) with all the breeziness and smarts you expect from Soderbergh, plus that knack he has for style that simultaneously seems retro and more of-this-very-moment than anything anybody else is making. Like, it seems like it’s shot pretty run-and-gun with modern, lightweight digital cameras and natural lighting and stuff, but the staging, framing (and credits) sometimes remind you of how the ‘70s suspense classics were crafted.
We could call it a techno thriller because the titular “Kimi” is a Siri or Alexa type device through which our heroine, Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz, THE BRAVE ONE, ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT), accidentally hears a murder. Her job is to listen to recordings of times Kimi didn’t understand what people were asking for, figure out what the miscommunication was (a regional term, a pop culture reference, a word used incorrectly) and add new information to improve the algorithm. When she hears something disturbing in the background of a recording she does some sleuthing, tries to navigate the company’s dense protocols for handling such a situation, and becomes a target. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Dobrenko, Andy Daly, Byron Bowers, COVID-19, David Koepp, David Wain, Derek DelGaudio, Devin Ratray, filmed in Seattle, Jacob Vargas, Jamie Baer, Rita Wilson, Robin Givens, Steven Soderbergh, Zoe Kravitz
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 30 Comments »
Wednesday, February 16th, 2022
THE SWORD IDENTITY is a 2011 period martial arts movie that’s the debut of writer/director Xu Haofeng, based on his own book. He’s directed a few more movies since then and notably wrote THE GRANDMASTER for Wong Kar Wai. I adore that movie and all its poetic musings about kung fu styles and secret moves, so I tried this one out and, though it’s in many ways THE GRANDMASTER’s stylistic opposite, I was not disappointed.
From the title I guessed it would be kind of a sword forensics thing. Maybe someone recognizes a famous sword in someone’s hand and has to learn of its history to identify the person or solve some mystery about them. It could also just be Jason Bourne with swords, which I would also be down for. It’s closer to the first option. It’s sort of about a sword causing a mistaken identity. When two men come into the town of Guancheng carrying swords of an unusual design they are mistaken for Japanese pirates, causing a citywide ruckus. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ma Jun, Song Yang, swords, Xu Fujing, Xu Haofeng, Yao Wei-Ping, Yu Chenghui
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, February 15th, 2022
WEST SIDE STORY – it’s very clear when you see it – is a film by Steven Fucking Spielberg. That’s why I saw it. Usually when I write about a remake of a beloved classic I like to be somewhat knowledgeable about the source material, but this late in the game you’ve had plenty of time to read reviews from people who know the musical or the earlier Robert Wise movie forward and backward, can tell you all the things that Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner (MUNICH, LINCOLN) added, cut, updated, etc., and the significance of those alterations. Or at least from someone who has seen the original. I have not. I would’ve, but Spielberg didn’t direct it.
I don’t really gravitate toward Broadway musical type stuff, but I do have a thing for great filmatism, so this thing knocked me out. As even I kind of knew, it’s the story of two gangs, the Jets (white guys) and the Sharks (proud Puerto Ricans) stubbornly fighting over territory in a dilapidated Manhattan slum that (this part is new, I believe) is on the verge of redevelopment. In the opening, Janusz Kaminski (COOL AS ICE)’s camera hovers over what remains of the neighborhood, climbs up the side of a structure under construction, past a billboard advertising the fancy apartment building and entertainment center it will become (featuring the sort of upper class white people who will inhabit it), then hangs out a while next to the wrecking ball waiting to get the process started. Meanwhile, the percussion section (David Newman [CRITTERS, ROVER DANGERFIELD, CONEHEADS, THE SPIRIT] arranging Leonard Bernstein’s music) playfully percolates like the build up to a heist sequence.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ansel Elgort, Ariana DeBose, Corey Stoll, dancing, gangs, Josh Andres Rivera, Mike Faist, Rachel Zegler, remakes, Rita Moreno, Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner
Posted in Musical, Reviews | 22 Comments »
