THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) - a blast into the past

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
(1980, USA)

This was far better than I remembered in the cinema, when I was expecting a big summer blockbuster movie. High on the possibilities posited by mysterious non-fiction paperbacks like Charles Berlitz' The Bermuda Triangle and The Philadelphia Experiment, I was initially disappointed by this slightly science fiction, naval drama. It's like a single Twilight Zone episode padded out by a US Navy recruitment film. That’s not to say it doesn’t have a certain bonkers charm.

Though the widescreen photography of military hardware would soon be eclipsed by the stylish, kinetic camera-moves and even faster editing in Top Gun six years later, this has a tantalising premise that carries along most of the story. A US aircraft carrier sets sail from Pearl Harbor in 1980, but is sucked back in time to 1941, just before the fateful sneak attack by the Japanese air force. The Final Countdown sets up far more possibilities than it delivers on, but it's Sunday afternoon fun while it lasts. The variable acting from the supporting cast, the actual crew of the USS Nimitz, is bolstered by an impressive display of jets, helicopters, perilous take-offs and landings.

A top-heavy cast tries to pump up the drama of the meagre plot. A battered-looking Kirk Douglas never quite takes it all totally seriously, despite the evidence before his character's eyes, and he looks much older than he did in his previous Holocaust 2000 or The Fury. A young-looking Martin Sheen appears relaxed and grateful to be out of the jungle hell of Apocalypse Now, looking good despite his heart attack during filming. James Farentino (Dead and Buried, Blue Thunder) appears grateful he's not doing TV. Katherine Ross (The Stepford Wives) looks grateful that the so-bad-they're-good The Legacy and The Swarm are behind her.

Bizarrely, future chief of schlock quickie, straight-to-video factory Troma Films, Lloyd Kaufman, not only associate produces here, but gets a bit part as communications officer 'Lloyd'. This must be the biggest film he's ever worked on. In fact, the budget would probably pay for everything he's done before and since. (Update: there's a blatantly honest interview with Lloyd on the Blue Underground special edition that's well worth watching, detailing how the movie could have been very bad indeed, or almost never made at all. Plus a frank account of his experience of the cast and crew!).


Though it's light on special effects (especially considering it was up against The Empire Strikes Back in the cinemas), the impressive aspect is the use of real craft instead of effects. Though James Bond title sequence veteran Maurice Binder produced the beautiful, simple, and scary time tunnel effects - the genre highpoint of the film, heightened by eerie sound effects. While John Scott composed the stirring soundtrack that’s almost too good to be used on this - the music was the only thing I'd actually remembered over the years between viewings. Recently, it's had a CD release, with some interesting liner notes in which Scott recalls his time on the project. He also mentions that his music was 're-used' in Japan and even became a hit single! Anyone out there know what Japanese music in the style of The Final Countdown soundtrack? I'll ignore any quips about Europe...

Blue Underground have released a handsome 2.35 anamorphic widescreen DVD, and a Blu-Ray! Lavish treatment indeed, but I'm very tempted. The largely location photography bathed in sunlight should look good in high-definition.

The Great, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly films of Nicolas Cage

I just saw the film Knowing the other day. I have been noticing Nicolas Cage has been showing up in werider and weirder roles lately. It sort of got me to thinking, what happened to Nic Cage? He is an Oscar winning actor who is still in a some what prime of his career. I have seen him act well before, and I think the guy has some charm and can be really funny. So Nicolas, what happened? Why are you taking on roles like Bangkok Dangerous and Knowing, when you could strive for better movies? I guess I don't have a definitve answer. I do enjoy seeing him in movies and I think he is as funny as his hair pieces. I just think Cage should strive for the better roles, maybe hook up again with the Coen brothers and get a Travolta like comeback going on. Here are his Great, Good, Bad, and Ugly movies that he has starred in, not including animated voice films.  (I will admit I haven't seen all of these but some I know are just bad i.e. The Wicker Man)

Great: Raising Arizona, Wild At Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation,  Face/Off

Good: Moonstruck,  Valley Girl,  Honeymoon In Vegas, The Rock, Con Air, Snake Eyes, Bringing Out The Dead, Windtalkers, Matchstick Men, National Treasure 1 & 2, World Trade Center

Bad: It Could Happen To You, City Of Angels, 8MM, Gone In Sixty Seconds, The Family Man, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Weather Man, Knowing, Lord Of War, Amos & Andrew, Guarding Tess

Ugly: Ghost Rider, Next, Bangkok Dangerous, The Wicker Man

After making the list it seems like the quality of films has dropped of late. The man sure has an interesting career filled with all types of roles. I am think he is a good actor, I just question is choices of late. He has some more interesting films coming out too. Kick-Ass is based off a comic book, I have read the comic and am looking foward to it. After that he is a doing a Werner Herzog movie called Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The man is all over the place with his roles. I know it shows he can act in anything but maybe he should not try to do that and stay with the good movies. How did he go from this...

To This...

 maybe all of this has something to do with it? 

HAKABA KITARO (2008) - the graveyard origin of GeGeGe No Kitaro

HAKABA KITARO
(2008, Japan, OVA, Graveyard Kitaro)

I've written as much as I can about GeGeGe No Kitaro in this total series guide, which I also keep updated. But while the character is enjoying a revival in Japan, all 400+ episodes of the animes now available on DVD. Creator Shigeru Mizuki has a museum all about his characters, and there's a Kitaro street of statues flourishing as a popular tourist destination in Sakaiminato. But in the west, Kitaro has only recently been represented on home video, by a single DVD release, the first live-action film. We've yet to see any anime, which first appeared back when Scooby Doo was first on TV!

But the animes never fully established exactly who Kitaro is. His origin has remained in the manga, even too scary for Japanese children's TV. Now comes Hakaba Kitaro, a short anime series, shown last year as part of the 40th anniversary of the Gegege anime, which has omitted much of the scarier, ickier side of the early manga stories. Whereas the ghost boy is regularly introduced emerging from a graveyard, like in the TV title sequences, episode 1 of Hakaba Kitaro dares to reveal Kitaro's mum and dad, his ghoulish birth and even the loss of his eye.


The series develops with Kitaro trying to find his place in the world, a young yokai living among humans. He meets Ratman and Catgirl for the first time, both portrayed to extremes, bigger farts and sharper claws respectively. His father, the eyeball (also explained), guides him towards his various powers as he gets used to modern city life, the lower reaches of hell, and angry yokai monsters.

The anime successfully mixes a deliberately retro style with the latest CGI effects. The drawing style reflects Shigeru Mizuki's earliest Kitaro manga. The human characters look angular and realistic - from before the time when he drew them in a rounded, cartoon style. The early Hakaba manga also provide many of the storylines, though the series interweaves these into a long continuing story. The almost primitive Kitaro character starts as a monstrous, hunched, cackling demon, carefree of the troubles of the world and netherworld, unlike the usual conscientious hero.


While there is humour, there's also sadness, shock and horror. The scares are often pitched at a level of near-hysterical terror like a Kazuo Umezu manga. There are more than a few echoes of Hell Girl - perhaps the creators are reminding us that Mizuki did it first, with Kitaro and his other early character Akuma-Kun, (Devil Boy), who also wore a stripy shirt.

I found two DVD releases of the series in Kuala Lumpur, intended for Hong Kong and Malaysia, both cramming the eleven episodes onto a single disc. The English subtitles on both were identical and accurately translated. They are the first translated DVD releases I've seen of any Kitaro anime. But while they looked like official releases, with holograms and carded sleeves, and bought in official video stores, the unreliable performance of the discs indicates otherwise.

But I look forward to a time when this rare scary anime is widely enjoyed as a stand-alone series, or as an introduction to this Japanese phenomenon, like the recent live-action films. I'm hoping that one day the many yokai monsters of these series will be seen outside Japan.

There's an interesting, related article about the series and Kitaro's history here on The Japan times online.

TOMIE vs TOMIE (2007) - she's back... both of her!

TOMIE vs TOMIE
(2007, Japan, Tomie x Tomie)

(Review updated on 19/01/2011)

I thought we'd seen the last of the movies about Junji Ito's creepy creation. But then came this eighth entry in the Tomie series (here's my guide to them all). It's been out on DVD in Japan since 2007, and I first saw it on a Chinese DVD in Malaysia, pictured above, but now Japan Flix have released it officially, online with English subtitles.

With Tomie's unnatural ability to completely regenerate from dismembered body parts, it's surprising she hasn't had to face herself before...


Two factory workers are tangling with Tomie, well, two different Tomies. One guy is recovering from the death of his girlfriend, but is being pursued by a Tomie, who has a gaggle of his colleagues at her bidding. Unknown to him, a close friend is helping another Tomie through a difficult regeneration...

In this 'episode' in the saga, Tomie is more in control than usual, manipulating many men around her in a small factory. But both the Tomies have a serious problem, decay...

The traditional mayhem, obsession and violence ensues. But the promised confrontation of the two Tomies is far too brief and falls short of the bizarre heights of the series. But this is still a creepy, coherent and occasionally bloody tale. It's an above-average but small-scale Tomie film, far better than the last two entries (Revenge and Beginning), and achieves the paranoid atmosphere of the best Tomies, of being in a bad dream.


Framed 16:9, it appears to have been shot on HD video, but is far better photographed than the previous two, with careful lighting and composition. It's well directed by Tomohiro Kubo, an assistant director on Tomie: Forbidden Fruit and Hideo Nakata's Sleeping Bride, adding visual layers to the many mysteries.


With consistently creepy music and creative shock moments, this is a Tomie overdue in the west. Though Japan Flix aren't yet releasing any DVDs, this is only available to rent online or purchase in HD on iTunes.

By the way, the English subtitles on the Malaysian DVD (at top) were very poor quality, as if they'd been translated in an online website, rarely making grammatical sense.

Here's a trailer on YouTube...

MLB 09 Predictions

AL East

Boston               97-65
New York          94-68*
Tampa Bay        91-74
Toronto             84-78
Baltimore         73-89

AL Central
Minnesota          90-72
Chicago              88-74
Kansas City       82-80
Cleveland          78-84
Detroit               77-85

AL West
Los Angeles      89-74
Texas                 80-82
Oakland            79-83
Seattle               69-94


NL East
New York           99-63
Philadelphia       94-68*
Atlanta                84-77
Florida                 81-81
Washington        65-97

NL Central
Chicago           101-61
Cincinnati        90-72
St. Louis           87-75
Houston           83-79
Milwaukee       75-89
Pittsburgh        71-91

NL West
Los Angeles            86-76
Arizona                   84-78
San Francisco        79-83
Colorado                 72-90
San Diego               62-100

*- Wild card

World Series- New York Mets Over Boston Red Sox

- I didn't even mean to pick the Giants and A's with the same record. I guess I pick the Mets because they have seemingly solved the bullpen problems with getting Franky Rodriguez and JJ Putz, both have been All-Star closers before. The Red Sox have amazing pitching all around. They have a lot of team players and will be better off without Manny. 

Malaysian DVD stores - gateways to Asian cinema

Before I forget, here’s a little about Malaysian DVDs – releasing movies from all over South East Asia. Plus a few locations of DVD stores that I descended on during a brief stay in Kuala Lumpur, if you should ever be passing through.

Malaysia lies on the peninsula between Thailand and Singapore, as well as owning a northern chunk of the island of Borneo. It was a different experience to Thailand, Malaysia is a very different mix of peoples and religions. While Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, Malaysia is largely Islamic, with Indian and Chinese temples sitting alongside mosques and Christian churches.

There are relatively few Malaysian movies, while Hollywood product and American franchised TV dominate the multiplexes and toy stores. But the larger DVD shops also has extensive selections from China (i.e. Hong Kong), as well as India, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. This makes Malaysia a great place to find a huge variety of movies from most of Asia.

Shelves of TV Boxsets are dominated by Japanese TV series and anime, and Malaysia releases English-subtitled DVDs that even Hong Kong hasn’t got. It’s a rare chance to get subtitled DVDs of practically every major Japanese TV series, like the live-action Hell Girl. Multiple releases can be due to Hong Kong versions being stocked as well as Malaysian, and also because some of them might be bootlegged.

The widest selection of Asian DVDs that I found, was at Classic World Entertainment, on the 3rd floor of the Times Square mall (nearest monorail stop: Imbi). The sign over the store simply says ‘Classic’. Here there were Hong Kong, Korean, Japanese, Indonesian, Indian and Malaysian horror films, plus a large section of anime.

Elsewhere in the Times Square mall were several stores devoted to Japanese anime figures and model kits – two can be found next to the indoor rollercoaster! I was pleased to find plenty of Ultraman and Masked Rider stuff in most of the toy stores too.

For anime fans, there's an even larger selection of DVDs in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown, which has two stores of Hiro Comic World on neighbouring streets. They also have a branch on the 3rd floor of the amusingly-named S&M shopping arcade.


The Video Ezy chain offer a more limited choice, with more Hollywood product, but were easier to find, like in the Times Square mall, and in the KLLC mall at the base of the Petronas Towers (pictured). I also visited the large DVD section upstairs in the Sogo department store, which had a generous Japanese TV selection.

Like I said, not all of Malaysia’s DVD releases appear to be official, no matter how official-looking the packaging is. The cover details aren't always accurate about languages and aspect ratios. The quality of the English subtitling is fairly stilted, like the Hong Kong releases, but sometimes much worse - misspelled, mistimed and loosely paraphrased. I've persevered with awful subtitles in the past, with their challenges of lateral thinking, because there's been no alternative available anywhere else.

Like Thailand, be careful as the latest films are also released on the VCD (VideoCD) format – these play in DVD players, but are much more compressed (worse picture quality) and the subtitles are burnt-in (not optional). If the film is on two-discs (VCDs only hold one hour of video), check whether there’s a VCD symbol instead of a DVD one. The artwork for VCD releases can be different from the DVD.


So, huge choice, but varying quality of product and English translation. It’s still a good way to pick through many weird and wonderful films that may never appear in the west.


Until now, the only online Malaysian websites I’ve used is Zoom Movie, which doesn't list many details about the DVDs, like the languages. Also, MovieXclusive from Singapore offers similar titles. Both sites offer releases that won't be found on the major Asian DVD suppliers like YesAsia.

FRIDAY THE 13th (1980) - finally Friday uncut, and on Blu-Ray

FRIDAY THE 13th

(1980, USA)

The first was only the beginning...

I keep returning to Crystal Lake, expecting to learn why it became so insanely popular. Now on Blu-Ray, it's possible to see the original movie clearer than it was ever projected. I couldn't even hear all the dialogue when I first saw it in a suburban fleapit.

It was a packed house on a Saturday night, the audience was hungry for the high bodycount promised by the trailer - a serial slasher film with guaranteed gore. Ironically at the time, America and the UK were unlikely to see much blood, sex or nudity after films had been past their respective censorship boards. The violence in the film was cut down - each kill faded to white early rather than show the whole murder. The week it came out in the UK (I’m guessing that was June 13th, 1980), I wish I’d seen it on Friday, and not Saturday, because I was sat in front of a loudmouth bastard who’d also seen it the night before. He proceeded to spoil every single surprise by telling his date what was about to happen. Not fun. But the film continued to fascinate, partly because of the bloody behind-the-scenes photographs in Fangoria, and also the series' subsequent longevity.

The new uncut US releases restore the death scenes that were only previously seen on home video on the Japanese laserdisc. There are also extras, old and new, talking about the original production – casting, special effects, story ideas and music. The director, Sean Cunningham, talks about misdirection, distracting the audience from where the next scare is coming from, which originally worked well. At the time, no one was sure whether the killer could be Crazy Ralph, Mr Christie the supervisor, or even the pot-obsessed cop… there were enough red herrings to keep us guessing. In interviews, the writer is honest about ripping off elements from the recently successful Halloween, and topping it all off with a shock ending like Carrie.

They talk about the making of the film, but not the key to it's success - the publicity machine. The classic bodycount trailer, and timing the premieres on Friday the 13th, selling it both as a ghost train ride and a date movie. We went to see everyone die. The characters weren’t expected to live, they weren’t given enough personality for us to get to know. Many of them were even annoying. The only thing that broke the boredom of the simple storylinewas the next kill. This is what the movie promised. Seeing it again, I was surprised at how few onscreen murders there were.


Friday the 13th became part of the horror movie genre called ‘have sex then die’. The inadvertent subtext is also ‘smoke pot then die’ or ‘play strip Monopoly then die’. Missing also is any mention of the handheld camerawork – Halloween opened with a memorable roving camera from the point of view of the murderer (itself an acknowledged steal from Dario Argento’s giallo thrillers). The success of much of Friday’s suspense are the twitchy point-of-view shots through the killer's eyes – indicating that they were nearby and also conveniently hiding their identity. I remember, In the cinema, there was screaming whenever the camera started creeping in on anyone.

Naturally, no mention is made of the uncanny resemblances to an earlier bodycount slasher, Mario Bava's 1971 Twitch of the Death Nerve, otherwise known as Bay of Blood. It has many of the same murder methods, a waterside setting, corpses rearranged for shock effect, and even a fisherman's pullover... But with far more explicit violence, more onscreen carnage and even gushing blood. The difference being it's Italian dubbed into English, and it has a twisty complex plot, perhaps too complex for a Saturday night crowd of teenagers. The similarities between Bay of Blood and the first two Friday the 13th films are as shocking as the nudity, and the gratuitous use of squishy squid close-ups. From the machete in the face, to the couple skewered with a spear during love-making. From a wheelchair murder, to a close-up decapitation... all from a film made nine years earlier.


Cunningham never planned on getting as far as a sequel, as is obvious from the bizarre premise of Friday the 13th Part II. He simply made a low budget horror, and look what happened.

On Blu-Ray, it looks remarkably good. It makes the most of the very dark, underlit, exterior scenes. The 5.1 audio mix isn’t tricksy, just slightly broadened, and there’s also the mono mix for purists. It’s the first time I’ve seen the film in a 16:9 aspect since the cinema release, and the composition looks strong and not cramped, even after all the years of 4:3 home videos. I’ve just finished watching all the Fridays in order. Now they’re coming out on Blu-Ray and in DVD special editions, with Friday the 13th Part III viewable in 3D on home video for the first time. For a better selection of cast and crew interviews, there's also the extensive documentary His Name Was Jason out on DVD.


Strangely, I can't find the Blu-Ray of Friday the 13th on Amazon.com, only on Amazon.co.uk which is ironic as this new Uncut edition and Blu-Ray haven't been released in the UK. I guess they're trying to minimise confusion with the new remake. Also, Amazon lists it as 2.35 widescreen, when it's really 16:9. Part III was the first Friday to be shot 2.35 (and also the first in the series to feature the iconic hockey mask).

Don't worry, I'm not going to review the rest of the series, I just wanted to share my memories of when it all began. And I didn't even mention Kevin Bacon or his speedos.