I am a big fan of 7-11 Slurpee's. I love getting the ice cold Slurpee of coke and cherry on a nice hot day, that shit hits the spot! I recently went into 7-11 and noticed a weird movie tie-in. It was for the new Terminator movie. They feature all the collectible movie cups with different characters from the new movie... hey that's cool, that's normal.
Whats weird is the new flavor they released with it..it is called Apocalyptic Ice Slurpee, a blood orange flavored beverage...yes you read that right...who in the world wants a a drink a Slurpee that A) tastes like APOCALYPSE or B) tastes like BLOOD ORANGE. And did I miss something, did the Terminators bleed orange? Is that the change McG has made to the new movie to get that coveted PG-13 rating? I just had to laugh when I saw that flavor, its ridiculous!
I guess this isn't a new thing, I know they did a tie in with the Simpsons movie. That at least made sense considering the resemblance between the Quick-E-Mart and 7-11 ok Simpsons basically copied the 7-11 culture with Apu and the Mart. They even transformed some 7-11's into Quick-E-Marts.
7-11 also whored it up for the new X-men Origins: Wolverine movie with another tie in. This time they had a flavor called Mutant Berry Slurpee. What the fuck do Berry's have to do with mutants? Could they really not just make a flavor that was grey or even white and just call it like Adamantium rage? This flavor is lame! They could have just used cherry and called it Cyclops Rays, anything but mutant berry considering it has nothing to do with the movie.
Speaking of collectible cups.What happened to the good old days of being able to buy cool glass mugs like they used to do with Star Wars? Oh I guess at least someone is doing that again.
First faltering romance for a pair of anime/manga/cosplay geeks
I'm not big on romantic comedies, but here's one devoid of cliches. It's in the world of anime geeks (or otaku), where fictional characters and their inventors attract an obsessive fandom of Star Trekian proportions. But while anime and manga are widely seen to be all giant robots and schoolgirls, in Japan they're about absolutely anything (tennis, cats, cooking) with just as many female fans.
Koino (Wakana Sakai) loves singing along with anime theme tunes, collecting manga, and dressing up as her favourite characters. Mon (Ryuhei Matsuda) is an aspiring manga artist with a radical take on the artform. The two meet by accident. Well. In an accident. Both twenty-something, lonely virgins, with something in common. A love of manga. She's particularly impressed that he's a manga artist. That is, until she sees his work...
The scenario is set for a bizarre courtship involving cosplay dating, ani-singers, and manga conventions... Mon stumbles into a manga bar and even the owner, Marimoda, gets tangled up in the budding relationship... The embarrassments of early sexual connections pale into comparison with their respective obsessions.
This is the first film directed by Suzuki Matsuo, an experienced actor who also stars as the deadpan bar manager. He's adept at handling this quickfire comedy with a sharp sense of visuals. Matsuo has also rallied an extensive set of cameos. Among the real-life manga artists and anime singers, there are also movie directors. I didn't get all the in-jokes (though the humour doesn't rely heavily on them), but I wasn't expecting to see Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo, Nightmare Detective) and Takashi Miike in all the chaos.
Acclaimed, cult actor Ryuhei Matsuda (the star of Nightmare Detective 1 and 2, and Gohatto) proves adept at deadpan comedy. He's also unafraid to flash his leopardskin bulge, though this is still very tame for a sex comedy. The less well-known Wakana Sakai proves to be his match for comic timing as well as drama.
I'd assumed that, by now, Otakus in Love would have been released on DVD in the UK or US, but no. With the widespread cosplay and anime conventions, I thought that this film could be an easy sell.
Luckily, the Japanese DVD was subtitled in English, under the title Koi no Mon. There's also a Korean special edition which has good subtitles and even subtitled extras on a second disc. Both editions are out of print, but they're out there, somewhere.
Su-Chang Kong wrote and directed both this and R-Point (2004) - both are horror films set in the army. I was impressed and scared by R-Point and wondered if this soldier's tale was going to be similar. The strengths of both films are that you're not sure which particular horror genre you're heading into. A slasher movie? Zombies? Ghosts?
Guard Point begins at the end of a massacre, at a remote concrete complex near the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea. A military investigation team arrives to discover a sole survivor drenched in blood, holding an axe. They're given 24 hours to determine what happened. Did everyone kill each other, or did one man do it all? Is he mad, or possessed?
But as the scares began, I was disappointed to see a few overly familiar horror cliches, especially after the originality of the surprises in R-Point. The plot was certainly clever, but maybe too convoluted, because I started to get lost as the story moved between timelines before and after the massacre.
When explanations finally arrived, they didn't quite answer everything, and I was left sorting out red herrings from loose ends. The narrative was hard-going and requires concentration - with many sudden flashbacks, it's not always easy to follow. Also, with a cast of four dozen characters, all soldiers, variously covered in blood and camouflage make-up, it wasn't easy to make out who's who.
But it's a handsome looking film, with a convincing cast and solid, steadily-increasing shocks. It's certainly far more eventful than R-Point, and far gorier. Maybe I'll understand it better second time around. If it was from Thailand I'd be very impressed. But from Korea, I'd expect to be more satisfied. Boy, am I hard to please sometimes.
Guard Post was released last year on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK by Cine-East.
Here's the trailer on YouTube, without subtitles though.
ENCHANTING SHADOW (1960, Hong Kong, Ching nu yu hun)
A beautiful film which inspired the internationally famous A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), which in turn revitalised the flying swords genre, as well as many more Hong Kong ghost stories. Recently restored on DVD, the 1960 Shaw Brothers version holds up as a favourable alternative to the better known Tsui Hark remake.
Based on the same source as A Chinese Ghost Story (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, written in the 17th century) it has the same basic structure of a rent collector who can't find a place to stay in a small town, resorting to staying in a deserted temple that the locals say is haunted.
Exploring the grounds, he meets an attractive young woman in the splendid back garden, where she lives with her aunts and grandma. While she is initially annoyed at his nosiness, she starts to fall for the handsome young man. But courting has many strict rules and when she gets too amorous, he's in danger of getting into deep trouble with her family. Worse than that, there's a horrible murder at the temple, and a body has been drained of blood...
Shot completely in a studio, this early example of colour film from Hong Kong rivals its remake. It's a far more sedate version, but is as typical of the early 1960s as A Chinese Ghost Story is of the late 1980s. The characters, the lush sets and costumes, and especially the story are it's strength. There's almost no fighting and a restrained use of special effects, just enough to serve the story, but with enough shock value.
The remake now almost looks more dated, with fast cutting, wide-angle swish pans, OTT wirework, saturated blue lighting and backlit smoke. The special effects have aged too - the skeletons make Army of Darkness look good. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great martial arts comedy, with inventive routines as good as classic Jackie Chan, and the cast look perfect, Leslie Cheung almost as beautiful as Joey Wang...
But if it's a more serious ghost story you want, I'd certainly recommend Enchanting Shadow. It has a relatively slow start, but I was impressed at how gripping it became. It appears to have been influenced by Hammer Horror, that made an international impression at the end of the 1950s, enough to film in Eastman colour and use startling blood and make-up effects.
There's a short documentary about the director Li Hanxiang included on the DVD (pictured at top), thankfully with English subtitles. As well as a trailer, which is so scratchy and faded, it's a reminder of how miraculous the restoration has been of this fifty-year old movie. The packaging states the film is 2.35 widescreen, but after watching it, that must be a typo. It's presented 4:3, which looks correct.
There's another favourable review of Enchanting Shadow here on Illuminated Lantern, and the DVD is available at HK Flix here.
Meanwhile, there are now remastered editions of all three Chinese Ghost Story films, like this Hong Kong DVD boxset available at YesAsia. Tsui Hark also remade the first film as an animation, and 24framespersecond has news that a live-action remake is now in the works.
5/1 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Prequel #1 of May- Takes place before Wolverine joins the X-Men. The movie took in a boatload of cash...can you say sequel? The movies continue to mess up on most mutants, the last mutant they did justice (who wasn't in the original cast) was Nightcrawler and that actor has the sense to not come back for the below average X-Men 3.
5/8 - Star Trek: Prequel #2 of May - All things look like this will be a big ass summer blockbuster. I am even excited for a fucking Star TREK movie, yes not Star Wars! Ever since shitty prequels I lost some faith in the Wars...Trek can have my new allegiance plus it has Sylar from Heroes, Harold from Harold and Kumar, and Shaun from Shaun of the Dead, sounds like an all-star cast!
5/21 - Terminator Salvation: Prequel, sort of #3- Bare with me. This movie is a sequel in that John Connor is now played by Batman...er Christian Bale. BUT we get introducted to younger Kyle Reese (played by Anton Yelchin, who also plays Chekov in the Star Trek movie). Anyway I guess it is not really a prequel but we see him and Arnolds Terminator before they were sent back in time to be in the first movie.
5/15 - Angels and Demons: Prequel of May #4 - They are saying its a sequel but the book came out before Da Vinci Code.
5/29 - UP: I will give it to those Pixar guys, they sure know how to make a good flick. I thought that last movie about a robot in love with almost no sound would suck balls..ended up being in my top ten of last year. Anyway this one is about an old man who's house flys in the air because its connected to a lot of ballons...yeah total flop!
6/5 - Land of the Lost: Is it sad that I only knew the LOTL remake show from 90's? I never knew it was an even crappy show in the 70's. Will Ferrell in this one, not sure if they are looking for laughs or action, probably both.
6/19 - Year One: It has Jack Black and Michael Cera in it, sounds like a good cast. I will check it out.
6/24 - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: Based off a toy! Transformers, more then meets the eye. This movie is eye candy, looks pretty cool especially if you like explosions! Lots and lots of explosions!
7/1 - Public Enemies: I think this could one of the best of the summer. Stars Johnny Depp and Batman err..Christian Bale!
7/15 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: My pick for the movie that will make the most $$ this summer. People have almost forgot about Harry in favor of all that Twilight shit. They will soon pay and remember the book they already read.
7/31 - Funny People: Judd Apatows newest flick. The trailer is bad ass, I have a feeling I will really enjoy this movie. Not thrilled with Sandler but he looks good in what I have seen and the supporting cast rocks! Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Eric Bana, and Jason Schwartzman to name a few.
8/7 - G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Based off a toy! You all know GI JOE was my toy when I was growing up. I think I dressed like a GI JOE for Halloween 5 years in a row. The preivews look mixed. Could follow Transformers and have lots of cool explosions.
8/21 - Inglourious Basterds: Not a bad end to the summer. Some Nazi killing fun! Don't let us down Mr. Tarantino!
Finally, I get to see an uncut version of Grizzly. This was the first to cash in on the bloody wake of Jaws. Cinemas were then deluged by a carnival of killer animal movies, mostly aquatic (Tentacles, Orca The Killer Whale, Piranha, Alligator...), but also landlubbers (Prophecy, The Swarm...). Although Grizzly was first out of the gate, it's one of the best in the genre.
The version we saw in UK cinemas in 1976 had most of the blood (and flying limbs) censored. Despite the amount of gore that was allowed in Jaws, the censor wasn't nearly as lenient with Grizzly. The wonderful Shriek Show 30th anniversary DVD has been my first chance to see the film in its entirety. Getting a 'guilty pleasure' like this, widescreen, uncut, with a commentary track, behind-the-scenes footage, and new interviews, make the Special Edition extra special.
Campers start dying in a state national park. When I say dying, I mean 'getting torn apart'. The ranger thinks a bear is to blame, but no one believes him when he reckons an abnormally large grizzly is responsible - it's just too far south. As the hunters become the hunted, he enlists the help of a helicopter pilot and an eccentric bear expert to try and end the carnage.
Director William Girdler's background was in low-budget horror movies, and Grizzly closely resembles an early slasher film, with the emphasis on slash. The intensity of the bear attacks puts Jason Vorhees to shame, using gore and close-ups of screaming victims backing away from the camera, in a way that recalls Italian giallo. There's as much blood in the uncut version of Grizzly than many Friday the 13th movies, and there's that familiar forest ambiance too. All this and helicopter action. Hey, I happen to like helicopters. So did 1970s action cinema. Had to have a helicopter.
Part of it's continuing watchability today is due to the extensive use of a real-life, full-size grizzly bear running around. (The DVD extras mention the solitary electrified wire that separated it from the cast and crew).
If this were made today, the scriptwriter would have to work hard to avoid the bear being simply anaesthetised and lovingly relocated. But this is a monster movie made in Texas, so the only solutions considered are strictly guns and ammo.
As a bonus, the cast are very good, adding convincing drama to a simple story, but are more familiar from TV. You may have seen Christopher George (the park ranger) star in Lucio Fulci's zombie classic City of the Living Dead (1979), vigilante slasher The Exterminator (1980), or even Girdler's next nature-revenge movie Day of the Animals. Richard Jaeckel (the eccentric tracker) for me is forever the star of Kinji (Battle Royale) Fukasaku's delirious The Green Slime (1968), as a military astronaut defending a space station from, um, alien monsters from the green slime...
As a prime example of bad-taste, low-budget, exploitation cinema gone mainstream, Grizzly is hard to beat. Girdler would try and match it's success with Day of the Animals (1977), but his last film was my favourite, The Manitou (1978), which I reviewed here.
Check out more abut William Girdler's 'Texploitation' movies here.
In the UK, Grizzly topped a double-bill with Drive-In, a good-natured Texan teen comedy. It was like American Graffiti, but in 1970s Dallas. It includes a movie-within-a-movie playing at the drive-in, Disaster '76, an early satire of catastrophe movies, made before Airplane. It's not on DVD, but Drive-In can be seen in its entirety here on GoogleVideo.
I first heard of this TV series as I was tracing back to the first of the Ultraman series, and assumed this was another show about 'a man in a suit fighting monsters'. But while Ultra-Q lead up to the first, classic Ultraman of 1966, it's a very different format. A trio of young investigators who face outbreaks of the unknown, usually involving giant monsters. This entertaining black-and-white series has now been reissued in Japan on DVD, crucially at a new lower price per disc.
It was dreamt up by the special effects mastermind behind the Godzilla films, Eiji Tsuburaya, as he was trying to find a format for his special effects techniques in a TV show. He was aiming for the same mixture of fantasy and mystery as the US hit The Twilight Zone, but because of his visual effects for Toho sci-fi films, like the Godzilla series, and possibly because they knew he owned all the monster suits, each episode of Ultra-Q usually has a giant monster in it.
In much the same way the producers of The Outer Limits insisted on a 'bear' every week, a scary monster or alien that would add a visual hook, Tsuburaya ended up switching formats to Ultraman, where his giant humanoid alien would fight a different monster every week. This UItra-format has been popular ever since, involving hundreds of live-action TV series and movies. The rights to the superhero were even sold internationally to the US, Australia and Thailand who shot their own versions.
But I really wanted to see Ultra-Q, to see more of Tsuburaya's special effects and unique monsters, some of whom have reappeared in later Ultraman series. There was even a recent update of Ultra-Q called Dark Fantasy, but it was a fairly cheap tribute, shot on video, and didn't look as nearly as impressive as the 1966 show, when the special effects rival his film work.
Ultra-Q episodes can either be mini-monster movies, short disaster epics, or surreal childhood fantasies. But the imagination and extensive special effects, not to mention the lively camerawork, fast editing and jazzy score, make it enjoyable even without subtitles. The series was made in black-and-white, unlike Ultraman, which helps makes the composite visual effects and back projection look more convincing, which adds to the charm.
While the series ended up being aimed at children, the high production values, adult cast and scary weirdness makes it as interesting to adult fans as sixties Godzilla movies, for instance.
Indeed, watch out for guest appearances from movie monsters Godzilla, King Kong, Manda and the gang, sometimes dressed up in disguise, and marvel at the new creations such as a giant snail with glowing eyes - a ridiculous and unique creature that still manages to creep me out. How'd you like to see that staring through your window at night?
I baulked at paying for the Japanese boxset that was issued in 2005, but in 2008 the same DVDs were reissued at a far more affordable price. There are seven volumes, each with four episodes on. CD Japan and YesAsia sell them, but be careful not to order the recent remake Ultra Q - Dark Fantasy, or the 2005 editions (they have black and white covers) as they cost twice as much as the new issues. Japanese DVDs are all NTSC, but coded region 2. There are no English subtitles on either release. For more about the life and works of visual effects mastermind Eiji Tsuburaya, August Ragone's extensive and superbly illustrated biography is still in the shops.
Update November 2013 Shout Factory have released the entire series with English subtitles for English-speaking fans to finally enjoy this unique series. Despite Japan releasing the series yet again, but colorised, it was relief to see this American boxset presents all episodes in the original black-and-white, over five discs.
