Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Wednesday, December 8th, 2021
If all you care about is plot, FLASHDANCE isn’t very good. There’s not much to it, just two central threads, both lightly sketched. First is the story of a talented young dancer who wants to apply to a ballet academy, but believes that her modern style will be rejected by snobby gatekeepers. We’ve seen so many more detailed variations on that theme in BREAKIN’, STEP UP, CENTER STAGE, STREET DANCE, etc. that this doesn’t seem like much.
The second thread is a romance between her and her boss, who’s twice her age, is completely transparent that he’s interested in her because he saw her do a sexy dance, is not particularly hot himself, keeps hitting on her after she says no, pisses her off by secretly using his connections to get her an audition she wanted to earn, and is forgiven without ever doing anything to make amends. At best, you understand her having a fling she’ll regret later, and hope she broke it off within the week. It’s hardly a romance for the ages.
And yet I kinda loved FLASHDANCE, because it feels like every other thing besides the plot goes above and beyond. In the case of the cinematography it goes above and beyond and loops back under and then goes above again. It’s Donald Peterman, who had shot WHEN A STRANGER CALLS and a couple others. He later became Ron Howard’s guy (SPLASH, COCOON, GUNG HO, HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS) and Barry Sonnenfeld’s guy (ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES, GET SHORTY, MEN IN BLACK) and he did STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME. Okay, I’m not sure what to make any of that, but he also did POINT BREAK, and that’s an impressive credit. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adrian Lyne, Belinda Bauer, Cynthia Rhodes, dancing, Don Simpson, Donald Peterman, Durga McBroom, Giorgio Moroder, Jeffrey Hornaday, Jennifer Beals, Joel Esterhaz, Katherine Reback, Kyle T. Heffner, Lee Ving, Liz Sagal, Lynda Obst, Malcolm Danare, Marine Jahan, Michael Nouri, Robert Wuhl, Rock Steady Crew, Sunny Johnson, Tom Hedley
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 36 Comments »
Tuesday, December 7th, 2021
“They’ve got a sound that the world is gonna love. The world.”
For many years I was aware that there was an old ‘80s movie released on VHS called SHORT FUSE starring Art Garfunkel. Because of that tough sounding title I figured it was some kind of WALKING TALL or DEATH WISH type shit where Art Garfunkel had a short fuse and some motherfucker made the mistake of lighting it. And then Art Garfunkel went off faster than expected on account of his fuse’s shortness.
Then Mr. Subtlety told me I should check out this movie called GOOD TO GO “a deliberate attempt to make a Go-Go version of THE HARDER THEY COME, with a bunch of local artists playing themselves,” which he noted was called SHORT FUSE on video and had Garfunkel in it. He knew I was into funk, and go-go is a related subgenre I could theoretically be into.
I was intrigued, but then kinda forgot about it until I was record shopping and bought the GOOD TO GO soundtrack because it was cheap and had Trouble Funk and Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers on it. And then I saw Art Garfunkel on the back and could tell from the picture that this was a guy with a really short fuse. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Art Garfunkel, Blaine Novak, Fab 5 Freddy, go-go music, Harris Yulin, Michael White, Richard Brooks, Robert DoQui, Washington DC
Posted in Crime, Music, Reviews | 11 Comments »
Monday, December 6th, 2021
Mario Bava’s DANGER: DIABOLIK stars John Phillip Law, who to me will always be Pygar, the blind angel of love from BARBARELLA. This one came out earlier the same year, 1968, and kinda seems like BARBARELLA’s evil crime movie cousin. It is in fact another Dino De Laurentiis international co-production based on a comic book, and reportedly uses some of the same sets (though I’m not sure which ones). It feels very much like a super hero movie at the beginning: we hear police talking about Law’s character Diabolik as some kind of legendary figure, he first appears in a long black car (Jaguar, not Batmobile), he shows up in a mask, does his thing, makes an escape to a secret entrance to an amazing hidden base inside a cave. But this guy is no super hero, he’s just a thief with a whole lot of flair.
Police Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli, THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE) is determined to not let Diabolik steal the $10 million that needs to be transported, going out of his way to deliver decoy money and send the real shipment in a Rolls-Royce with cops disguised as diplomats. But that car finds itself engulfed in plumes of multi-colored smoke and then lifted up by a crane operated by by Diabolik. The camera zooms in on him for a diabolical laugh when the title comes up. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Carlo Rambaldi, Dino De Laurentiis, Ennio Morricone, fumetti, John Phillip Law, Lamberto Bava, Mario Bava, Marisa Mell, Michel Piccoli
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Thursday, December 2nd, 2021
I’m still catching up with these RUROUNI KENSHIN movies. I really recommend RUROUNI KENSHIN PART I: ORIGINS (2012), and I watched RUROUNI KENSHIN II: KYOTO INFERNO (2014) a while back and then this one. I got caught up and didn’t finish that review until now but I wanted to finish before I watch this year’s final two installments.
RUROUNI KENSHIN PART III: THE LEGEND ENDS (2014) continues from the cliffhanger of part II, in which our no-longer-believing-in-killing samurai hero Kenshin (Takeru Satoh, SAMURAI MARATHON) had leapt from the pirate ship of aspiring-Japan-conqueror Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara, BATTLE ROYALE), failed to save his pacifist sword master friend Miss Kaoru (Emi Takei, TERRA FORMARS), and washed ashore on some beach, to be discovered by a mysterious dude. But the story slows down for a while, correctly judging that part II has earned the filmatists our trust and the right to take a breath and dig into the characters and the melodrama for a while. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Emi Takei, Keishi Ohtomo, Kenji Tanigaki, Masaharu Fukuyama, Munetaka Aoki, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Takeru Satoh, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Yosuke Eguchi, Yu Aoi, Yusuke Iseya
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, December 1st, 2021
GUARDIAN ANGEL is a 1994 Cynthia Rothrock joint from PM Entertainment, directed by Richard W. Munchkin (RING OF FIRE) and written by Joe Hart (REPO JAKE, STEEL FRONTIER). It’s not one of the better crafted Rothrock pictures, but it’s a worthwhile grade of ridiculousness.
Rothrock stars as Christine McKay, who’s working as a cop when we first meet her. And she’s at a great place in her life. Staking out a public park undercover as “lady standing next to ice cream truck,” she shows off her engagement ring to her partner and confesses that she never thought she’d marry a cop. Then the shit goes down: two groups totaling around 25 people show up at the park to discuss a counterfeiting transaction.
McKay makes the very questionable choice to run by herself toward these gangs firing her gun in the air. The sound causes them to start fighting and shooting at each other. She personally beats the shit out of several of them before backup arrives. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aharon Ipale, Art Camacho, Cynthia Rothrock, Daniel McVicar, Joe Hart, John O'Leary, Ken McLeod, Lydie Denier, Marshall Teague, PM Entertainment, Richard Norton, Richard W. Munchkin
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, November 30th, 2021
I don’t know what DEMENTIA 13 means, but that’s the name of Francis Ford Coppola’s official on the record first feature directorial work, and it’s the rare Coppola horror outing, almost 30 years before BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA. It’s a tight little black-and-white Roger Corman production that seems to split the difference between gothic horror like the Poe movies (THE RAVEN, THE HAUNTED PALACE and THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH were released the same year, 1963) and the modern slasher like PSYCHO and PEEPING TOM (released three years earlier). It’s got a castle, a rich family and some possible ghostiness, but also a money scheme running afoul of an ax murderer. And there’s a mystery. And some brutality I wasn’t expecting in a movie of this era.
It’s got a great opening – John Haloran (Peter Read, THE BRAIN, TALONS OF THE EAGLE) is upset one night, wants to row out onto the lake to be by himself, but his wife Louise (Luana Anders, THE YOUNG RACERS, NOWHERE TO RUN) comes with him and bickers with him about money. His mother is sick and plans to will her fortune to charity – Louise wants him to talk to her about putting him in the will. All the rowing gets his heart worked up and he collapses. She goes for his heart pills (apparently this happens alot) but the container is empty, and he dies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Hill, Mary Mitchel, Monte Hellman, Patrick Magee, Peter Read, Roger Corman, William Campbell
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Monday, November 29th, 2021
HYDRA (2019) is a modest Japanese crime movie that I enjoyed for its simplicity. It begins harshly, with a very efficient killing and disposal of a guy in a public restroom. The very human detail that the victim can’t stop peeing as he’s stabbed and dragged from the urinal to a stall ups the disturbing factor by about 150%. And that’s before we see a man wearing tight swimming trunks (Takashi Nishina, GAMERA 3: REVENGE OF IRIS) so he can chop up the body and then hose himself off before giving a few chunks as treats to his piranhas. Seems like he’s got the process down pat.
They have a whole system, because this is some kind of organization that murders crooked cops. Reading other people’s reviews maybe this is a vigilante anti-corruption kind of thing, but I got the impression from the dialogue that it was more like a coverup, getting rid of the guys who go so far they become liabilities. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Hi-Yah! Exclusive, Masanori Mimoto, Naohiro Kawamoto, Takashi Nishina, Tasuku Nagase
Posted in Action, Crime, Martial Arts, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, November 24th, 2021
You know how it is – sometimes the mood hits you for a little martial arts/horror combo, specifically the type found in Hong Kong vampire movies from the early 2000s, so you check out two of them. At least that’s how I dealt with the problem. The first one in my double feature, VAMPIRE EFFECT (2003) credits Dante Lam (BEAST COPS, THE STOOL PIGEON) as director and none other than Donnie Yen (HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME) as “co-director” and “action director.” Unsurprisingly, the action is the best part.
The original title is TWINS EFFECT, because it stars a pop duo called Twins, made up of Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung. But nobody knows what that is here and there are no twins in the movie, so I guess this is our equivalent to when Germany changed ROVER DANGERFIELD to ROVER & DAISY. And this is another one of those pop star vehicle movies that doesn’t really have an equivalent here exactly. I mean, you don’t see Tegan and Sara doing a vampire movie. So far.
Choi stars as Helen, a heartbroken young woman who, while grieving a breakup, hits it off with a vampire prince named Kazaf (Edison Chen, GEN-X COPS 2: METAL MAYHEM) who’s enjoying a glass of blood in a fancy restaurant. She doesn’t realize what he is, even though she has some knowledge of such matters because her brother Reeve (Ekin Cheng, YOUNG & DANGEROUS) is a vampire hunter. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Wong, Anya, Charlene Choi, Chunhua Ji, Danny Chan, Dante Lam, Edison Chen, Ekin Cheng, Gillian Chung, Herman Yau, Hong Kong action, Jackie Chan, Josie Ho, Ken Chang, Lam Suet, Michael Chow, Mickey Hardt, Tsui Hark, vampires, Wellson Chin, Yu Rongguang
Posted in Horror, Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021
BANSHEE is a pretty cheesy 2000s crime/action type movie I added to my Letterboxd watchlist long enough ago that I don’t remember where I found out about it. I think I was scouring for movies directed by women that were more in the b-action type zone I prefer instead of the respectable stuff you usually see on lists. So I came across this obscure car thief movie I’d never heard of from Canadian director Kari Skogland and screenwriter Kirsten Elms (TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D).
Skogland’s filmography at the time included CHILDREN OF THE CORN 666: ISAAC’S RETURN and LIBERTY STANDS STILL starring Wesley Snipes. And, unsurprisingly, she’d done a bunch of episodic TV work including Dead at 21, La Femme Nikita and The Crow: Stairway to Heaven. In the intervening years she’s become a little more high class, doing episodes of Boardwalk Empire, The Americans and The Handmaid’s Tale, and most recently she directed and executive produced the entire six-episode run of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Campbell, Genelle Williams, Kari Skogland, Kirsten Elms, Maurizio Terrazzano, Michael Lombardi, Mike Tsar, Morgan Kelly, Romano Orzari, Taryn Manning
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Monday, November 22nd, 2021
THE SWORDSMAN is a 2020 Korean film about a swordsman. Color me intrigued. (Seriously. I like swordsmen.) I wonder what’s up with this swordsman that makes him THE swordsman?
Actually there’s a bunch of swordsmen in THE SWORDSMAN with one that I assume is the titular swordsman but another one you could make an interesting if not totally convincing argument for. The main one is Tae-yul (Lee Min-hyuk), “the best swordsman in Joseon,” who in the prologue (while being played by Lee Min-hyuk) refuses to stand down from protecting the king (Jang Hyun-sung, SHIRI) when the other top officials have decided to topple him in a rebellion. The secondary swordsman is Min Seung-ho (Jung Man-sik, THE YELLOW SEA), an older military official who, to get to the king, challenges Tae-yul to a duel in which Tae-yul’s sword shatters, sending shards into his hand and eyes. At that point the king stops the fight and agrees to step down.
Unspecified years later, Tae-yul (now Jang Hyuk, VOLCANO HIGH) is a recluse living in the mountains with his teenage daughter Tae-ok (Kim Hyun-soo, THE FIVE). He periodically has problems with his vision, and a monk tells them to go get a special herb from a trader he knows named Hwa Seon (Lee Na-Kyung, BATTLE FOR INCHEON: OPERATION CHROMITE) or he’s gonna go blind. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angelina Danilova, Choi Jae-hoon, Choi Jin-ho, Jang Hyuk, Jang Hyun-sung, Joe Taslim, Jung Man-sik, Kim Hyun-soo, Korean cinema, Lee Na-Kyung
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 8 Comments »
