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BATTLE OF OKINAWA - Dir. Kihachi Okamoto (1971)

Fairly well made docudrama war epic in terms of budget & story telling. Really can't go wrong with two strong leads in Tetsuro Tamba & Tatsuya Nakadai playing officers in the Imperial Army's 32nd division with opposing views on how best to confront the impending land invasion of Okinawa by US Marines & Okamoto details all the political machinations behind the scenes, which led to Okinawa basically being a sacrificial lamb for the higher ups back in Tokyo. As expected for a war drama, the battle scenes are fairly graphic & violent. But there are many odd moments of humor interspersed among the carnage as well (odd for a gaijin at least) -- one such scene that struck me in particular was a lower extremity amputation being performed on an injured soldier by a doctor with a hacksaw and the nurse gleefully carries away the separated leg over her shoulder while proclaiming the amputated leg is the biggest "daikon (radish)" she's ever seen?! Guess some humor doesn't always translate well across cultural lines.

I watched this from the DVD put out by AnimEigo and the PQ is very good and the subtitles are top notch and very informative as usual. The only negative is the audio track which has a buzzing sound which never completely goes away during the entirety of the movie.

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

The Incredible Melting Man. Great goo!

[Alison Jane Girl Boss Jane Find all posts View Profile Close Alison Jane]

What are you watching?

I just saw that for the first time a few years ago. I really enjoyed it.

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

My first time, too. It's everything the Quatermass Xperiment shoulda been. "Mama, there's frankensteins down by the creek!!!"

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

L.A. ZOMBIE (Bruce La Bruce, 2010).

I always get Bruce La Bruce and Lash LaRue confused for a second, and I had this mixed up with OTTO: or UP WITH DEAD PEOPLE. Despite the brainfog, my expectations were still about right, surprisingly. Arty, cheap, unhorny, sad, almost elegiac: like a gay fantasy (fantasy with sex, not sex fantasy) owing some debt to Delany's Mad Man homeless kink and BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET's alien observer riff. Not porn: more or less mostly softcore, the sex is shot in ways that put too much distance for porn, and the alien prosthetic dick is offputting. (I see why Tolch, a guy who enjoys a good dick in a movie, was disappointed, haha.) The first scene, with the dick sliding under the guy's heart was almost poetic, but the central metaphor (semen/blood = life) is such an HIV hotbutton, that it's never really ever that, um, heartfelt again: it's like it's too serious for tropes, maybe. I dug the scene with the dead guy in the cardboard box that the tardis came in: it seemed that was the point where the gentle sense of wonder fantasy thing really kicked in for a moment. Even despite the unicorn. It's slight, but personal, and felt like an antidote for grief or something.

Nobody dies from AIDS in this movie; and in zombie movies, you never use the zed word. (ob. Canadianism)

Makeup was pretty much of the bodypaint and fright teeth variety, but I liked the Tars Tarkas fangs in that one scene; they went well with the Barsoomian leathers.

Everybody's distastes are personal; I'm glad I watched it. I still want to see OTTO, but I'm unlikely to spend more than a $1.99.

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

BAZ DOES LAZ

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. So brutal, so many great performances: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Lang, Burt Young, even Stephen Baldwin. Looks great on blu-ray.

[Richard--W a straight arrow Find all posts View Profile Close Richard--W]

Watched the Legend Films edition of THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964) which claims to be "restored" although it looks exactly like the transfer in MGM's Midnite Movies Double-Feature DVD. This is the script Richard Matheson wrote for Hammer Films in 1958. The British censors wouldn't let Hammer shoot it, so eventually Hammer sold the script to Sam Arkoff and Robert Lippert who co-produced it in Rome, Italy. I wonder how much of Matheson's script survives. He is credited under the alias of Logan Swanson here. Three other writers had their fingers in the pie, including Ubaldo Ragona. I haven't read the script, but I get the feeling it played better on the page. It is directed loose as a goose and with complete indifference by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow, although Salkow is the only director credited. Vincent Price does his best to sell it, but the directors have no feeling for the story. The monochrome photography is so artless and bland, I chose the colorized option. It doesn't hurt. The budget is a shoestring, but that's no excuse for artless filmmaking. Just think what Mario Bava could have done with this! Nevertheless, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH is the only adaptation of I Am Legend -- my favorite horror novel -- that makes sense. It is free of screaming helicopters, massive explosions, and dump trunks unloading bodies by the thousands. In other words the austere minimalism works in favor of the story. I enjoy the film despite its deficiencies.

The studios keep screwing up this story.

Matheson's novel would make a terrific theatrical play.

[paul h. woly boly Find all posts View Profile Close paul h.]

Watched DRIVE again. Still holds up. Great talking bonus of director Refn on the BD, not really an interview, but Refn just talking about making the film. He's odd. It's amazing that his films get made at all.

Today I watched SPRING BREAKERS. Thumb up, I guess. It's all messed up, James Franco was great as a nasty "wigger" rapper gansta dude with metal teeth, singing Britney Spears ballads. Nudity. Panty and Crotch fetish shots. Pink unicorn ski masks. Franco fellates handgun barrels. Pretty colors to look at.

Tried again, in vain, to make it through THE SEARCHERS. ugh. It just drives me crazy and I always shut it off.

[47lab Guest Find all posts View Profile Close 47lab]

Watched Takeshi's again last night. What an absolutely great fucking movie! Kitano yanking his viewers' chain every chance he gets & one can't help but reply, "yes please, may I have another!"

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DON'T CRY MOMMY - Dir. Kim Yong-han (2012)

Like AZOOMA, this is another "mother out for revenge" type crime thriller from Korea. Unlike AZOOMA, this one is played fairly straight without crossing the line into exploitation. Unfortunately, this movie is too predictable & cliche to warrant any type of positive response from me. I understand the director/screenwriter earnestly wants to put forth a social message about the current lax laws governing rape by minors in Korea & the underage sex offender crime statistics shown during the end credits are rather shocking but this movie is too heavy handed in its approach and the director too ham fisted in attempting to deliver his message. One only has to look at the 2011 film, THE CRUCIBLE aka SILENCED by Hwang Dong-hyuk as a far superior attempt at a film delivering a soclal message.

This film was just mediocre in all aspects. The scenes which were supposed to be poignant & heart wrenching like for example when the mother discovers one of the perps' cellphone with the video of her daughter being forced to play cello while her rapists torment her just came across as disingenuous and hollow. The director attempted to ratchet up the tension during the scenes where the mother hunts down her daughter's rapists but the final payoff was yet another let down among many. The final scene on the rooftop of the school with the detective, the last perp, who was the apparent mastermind and the mother was so predictable and just a cop out. It actually had me imagining what this mediocre script would've been like if it had been made into a pure exploitation flick with some I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE retribution at the hands of the aggrieved mother -- that definitely would've at least made this movie watchable & not be a complete waste of time.

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

TOWER OF EVIL. Excellent.

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DIRTY BLOOD - Dir. Kang Hyo-jin (2012)

This psychological "revenge" thriller is much better than the aforementioned DON'T CRY MOMMY but too long as typical of Korean movies (yes, another 2 hours + run time) & this severely affected the pacing of the film. Some parts were just tedious to sit through and given the rather dark subject matter, it just made it a chore at times. I am familiar with the director's previous work, PUNCH LADY & that was a lame romantic comedy devoid of any substance but this film is an entirely different animal. It certainly had the makings of being a very special movie but one can't help something went awry in the process & it just didn't hit the viewer as hard as it could or rather, it should have given the underlying premise & the impressive acting debut by the young lead, Yoon Joo. A missed opportunity for Kang Hyo-jin IMO.

Now I have to track down Lee Don-kyu's debut film, FATAL which given the positive reviews is supposedly the best of the bunch among the recent dark sex themed films emerging out of Korea.

[Johnny Stickman Way Out Hep Cat Find all posts View Profile Close Johnny Stickman]

Brazil and Altered States: a couple of strange cerebral sci-fi flicks I decided it was time to finally see. Both are far-out, trippy fun visual madness.

[sukebanboy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sukebanboy]

I know I brought it on myself but JESUS WEPT ....SCARY MOVIE 5 was ATROCIOUS....

I was weeping with the pain it was causing me to sit through ...The horror....the unfunnniness...the desperation.....

Seriously, they needed to do a JERRY LEWIS and bury this movie in the directors vault...never to be seen by anyone...