July Screening Log

I have now started to keep track of what movies I have seen in a month, I wish I started this sooner as I have been seeing more and more movies thanks to netflix instant watch and my new roommate having a PS3, ah got to love technology (I can also watch them on my new high def cpu as well).

1) Deep End/ DVR / B+
2) Commando/ DVD / C
3) Julie & Julia/ DVD / B
4) She's Out Of My League/ DVD / C+
5) Cashback /Netflix Watch/ A
6) The Rainmaker / DVD/ B-
7) Krull / Netflix Watch/ D
8) Stan Helsing / Netflix Watch/ D-
9) Driving Miss Daisy / Netflix Watch/ B
10) Return to Sleepaway Camp / Netflix Watch/ D+
11) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen / DVD/ B
12) The Road / DVD/ B
13) Monsters,Inc. / Netflix Watch/ A-
14) Toy Story 2 / Blu-Ray/ A
15) Predators / Theater/ C+
16) Inception / Theater/ A-
17) Despicable Me / Theater(3-D)/ B
19) Cop Out / Blu-Ray/ B-
18) Rambo:First Blood Part II / DVD / B-
20) Ratatouille / Disney Channel & DVR / A-

Stand out movie of the Month:(tie) Cashback and Inception. See them if you haven't already.

SHINJUKU INCIDENT (2009) - Jackie Chan, hard man

SHINJUKU INCIDENT
(2009, Hong Kong)

Jackie Chan proving he can act up a storm

I love the films that Jackie Chan makes in Hong Kong. The last I saw was his belated 2004 entry into the phenomenal Police Story series. Many of his Chinese action movies are legendary, with life-risking stunts and an inventive mastery of martial arts. His direction and imagination in comedy action has been compared to the work of Buster Keaton, one of the few film-makers who also included the ambitious staging of stuntwork into his stories.

But the other brand of Jackie Chan film is something less than phenomenal. His Hollywood films focus more on his imperfect English and are obsessed with him being Chinese. The restrictions on risky stuntwork in Hollywood, plus his advancing years, have prevented him from doing most of his own stunts, severely restricting his talents.


Thinking about it, the last Hollywood film I saw Jackie Chan in was The Cannonball Run II (1984), during his first attempt to break into the American market. Since then, I’ve not been at all tempted by his English-speaking films, mostly comedy or children’s films.

Even in his recent Hong Kong movies, he’s been doing far fewer stunts and more acting. But in his own country, he has no problem being accepted in more serious roles. This is a more interesting side to his talents, best showcased in the new Shinjuku Incident in which he gives his best performance yet.


A world away from Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon, this is a tough drama about a sensitive subject, illegal Chinese immigrants trying to work in Japan. The film opens with a spectacular image of a shipwreck and a beach swarming with exhausted survivors. A farmer nick-named Steelhead (Chan) makes his way to Tokyo to join his brother (Daniel Wu). He’s left North-East China to try and find his girlfriend.

But as he tries to find work in Japan, he discovers that crime is easier than the dirty work offered to ‘illegals’. Through flashbacks we see his former life in China, which really doesn’t look that bad. The film presents financial gain as the motivation for his friends and family trying their luck in Japan. But this doesn’t fully explain why so many would repeatedly risk their lives just to be able to afford the latest luxury goods? Is the story avoiding telling the truth about why some Chinese ran away from China?


But Jackie isn’t like the others, he’s not in it for the money. The first half of the film tells a convincing story, with Chan giving an excellent and underplayed performance. It’s also fascinating to see him play an ordinary man who doesn’t know how to fight when he gets into a physical confrontation. I thought this was a cleverly played angle for someone so famous for their fighting skills.

The story takes a rather forced turn as his new friends, in this home from home, take on Japanese organised crime! It turns into a faint echo of The Godfather, right down to the brutal violence. It can’t hope to compete with such a classic, though the unusual setting carries it along. There’s more action and cinematic drama in this second half, but it’s rather rushed, with a noticeable leap in the narrative that hints that the film may once have been even longer.


While Steelhead’s motivations were easy to understand early on, his increasingly complex situation makes it much harder for us to sympathise. It’s hard to feel any compassion during his power struggle in the world of organised crime, however noble his reasons.

This is no less believable than many modern thrillers, in that they forfeit logic for intrigue, but the opening story of immigrants in Japan felt interesting enough. I’d have liked to see it played out logically, comparing the quality of life in China with Japan.


The use of Tokyo as a backdrop, and the mix of Japanese and Chinese actors must have been an ambitious undertaking, but it's entirely successful and fascinating to watch.

As a violent gangster tale in an unusual setting, with Jackie Chan showing just what he’s capable of as an actor, this is worth seeing. It's out in the UK on DVD and Blu-Ray from Cine Asia.

Here's a trailer...

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929) - not on DVD

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN
(1929, USA)

Rare, creepy Hollywood silent from the director of Haxan

A fearless bespectacled adventurer (Creighton Hale, also in The Cat and the Canary, 1927) and his fiance (Thelma Todd) get trapped in a house of mystery after panic breaks out at a society party.

They're kidnapped and imprisoned in a huge house filled with secret panels, torturers, assassins and a gorilla on the loose. Quarelling factions help and hinder them from escaping. A Chinese mystic, a dwarf and a monkey man inform them they are unwilling guests in the house of Satan, pawns in a deadly game...

With subtle tracking shots and a masterly use of shadows, the director was already a horror veteran. Benjamin Christensen made the extraordinary Haxan (1922) in his native Denmark, an unsettling and unique history of witchcraft and demonology, visualising devils and their worship. The other-worldly special effects make-ups must have caught Hollywood's eye, though I was surprised that he could adapt to the mainstream after creating such an experimental vision. He also worked on the epic adaption of Jules Verne's Mysterious Island (1929) which, like Satan, was hurriedly adapted into a version with sound, when silent movies suddenly had to compete with the synched dialogue of The Jazz Singer.



From the very first scene, the audience gets wrong-footed, misdirection sustains the surprises that literally leap out of the woodwork. These are often better staged than many modern horrors, where you can easily anticipate the next 'shock'. He often springs surprises just as a scene begins, before the audience has had time to get its bearings.

The parade of weird-looking characters predates Freaks, Angelo Rossitto appearing in both films - here (above) he has a rather strange beard. The use of animalistic make-ups look like a warm-up for Island of Lost Souls. A grotesque character on crutches called 'The Spider' reminded me of a Lon Chaney make-up - the actor is Sheldon Lewis, one of the first actors to play Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in a movie (in 1920).

Seven Footprints to Satan has the fast pace of a slapstick two-reeler sustained for feature-length, though it's not intended as comedy. With all the sliding bookcases and hidden panels, it plays like an early Scooby Doo cartoon. I'd love to see it restored, as it should take its place alongside the classic creepy movies of the period. It's as much fun as the highly-acclaimed The Cat and the Canary, and more eventful than The Bat Whispers and Lon Chaney's The Monster. The plot twists are still rewarding at a pulp fiction level, though it's not very faithful to the source novel by Abraham Merritt, whose story Burn Witch, Burn was later adapted for Tod Browning's The Devil Doll (1936).



Christensen's earlier Haxan has been remastered by Criterion but Seven Footprints to Satan seems to be floundering in the grey area of 'public domain'. I've only ever seen this same wobbly, over-exposed print, with its Italian intertitle cards. Some clever person translated them all and edited a new all-English version that was briefly presented on YouTube. Perhaps that makeshift presentation will eventually lead to a proper restoration. Seven Footprints is the only surviving film from Christensen's Hollywood horrors.



The bleached-out visual quality and scratchy print is poor but watchable, though not a great introduction to silent cinema. But it was the only way I've ever been able to watch this film in English, and there might not even be any better prints out there (there's a rumour of one possibly stored in a Danish archive). But anyone enticed by the startling publicity photos, and fans of the director or the period had better hope it'll emerge again one day soon.

The fan-translations of the Italian Intertitles are online, listed here.

Some great stills of the leading characters, on Yesterday's Papers.

More rare stills and posters, here on Gorilla Men and here on a Thelma Todd blog.


All that I can find online now are a few clips (with Italian intertitles) on Vimeo here and here...

Meeting William Shatner: the London Film & Comic Con 2010

Just because I want to meet William Shatner, that doesn't make me a Trekkie!

While it presumably pales into insignificance against the San Diego Comic Con, this London version is only a train ride away for me and... William Shatner was attending.

Shatner.

"The Shat".

I guess it's pointless trying to distance myself from Star Trek. But I wasn't wanting to see him because of Star Trek. Every time I say I like horror movies and sci-fi, most people's brains fast-forward immediately to labelling me as a Trekkie. Should I speak more slowly? How do they get from horror movies to Star Trek? Admittedly I first saw him in classic Trek, but I'll watch him in anything: from TV movies to every episode of TJ Hooker, his episode of The Outer Limits, the esperanto movie, anything. His acting style is mesmerising, bizarre, unique, fascinating. I had to meet him!

He was by far the biggest draw at the event - I was delighted that he has so many fans in England. We'd pre-booked tickets to get our photos taken with him, months in advance, and we still had to wait all day to see him.

I'd love a Batmobile, but which version is the best?

In the meantime, there was other fun to be had. Besides the Batmobile (from Batman Begins?) there were some great fan costumes around. My favourite was the classic Cylon with an operational 'scanning' red eye. The lords of the sith were a little overweight, the Imperial Stormtroopers a little short to be stormtroopers, but the Alien xenomorph was good enough to illicit heartfelt screams from the unwary.

I wanted to meet Andrew Robinson - his roles as the really insane killer in the first Dirty Harry film and the nasty dad in the first Hellraiser had provided me with indelible memories. Despite being buried in rubber appliances, his character Garak, in Deep Space Nine, is an impressive and subtle performance, lighting up every scene he's in. I asked him about how he got cast in his first film, Dirty Harry. He said it was because he was friends with the director's son, who he'd already worked with. I thought it was still a stretch that a newcomer to movies could pull off a character as completely demented as Scorpio. Comforting though that the actor is nothing like his screen villains. I also got a little nervous meeting Tony Todd, who's even taller than me. Again, really nice and normal in real life. Would you really want to meet someone like the actual Candyman.


I moved on to meet Tom Noonan, mainly because he was the Tooth Fairy serial killer in Michael Mann's Manhunter, the film that introduced Hannibal Lecter to the big screen. That, and he was the Frankenstein creature in The Monster Squad, one of my favourite movies. Most recently he was in the acclaimed faux 80's horror House of the Devil. I brought up the subject of the possible Monster Squad remake and hit a nerve. Noonan lamented that no less than four movies that he'd been in were currently in the process of remakes.


Onto the Star Wars corner, where there was a spread of Star Wars talent - Dave Prowse and Kenny Baker as usual, Jeremy Bulloch (the first Boba Fett, pictured above), and one I hadn't seen before, Julian Glover. Not only had Glover been in The Avengers, early Doctor Who, Space 1999, Bond film For Your Eyes Only, but was also an Imperial Officer in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. But I wanted to meet him because he'd been in Hammer's Quatermass and the Pit (1967) as the untrustworthy Colonel Breen, one of the few remaining survivors of that cast.

As a break from collecting the autographs of bad guys, we went to meet Sean Young, the star of Blade Runner and Dune, not to mention Ace Ventura - Pet Detective. No, I didn't mention it. While I believe she's fantastic in comedy, it's her character in Blade Runner that I'll always associate her with. While it's my favourite film, this is only the second actor I've met from the cast - the first being Joe Turkel (he played Eldon Tyrell). Again, despite what I'd heard through the years, she was really nice and charming, though I was too starstruck to ask any meaningful questions or pay any original compliments. (The above photo is Sean with my husband.) I'm usually too shy to ask to get photos with my idols. I settle for their autographs.

But finally it was time to meet Shatner.

It was certainly well-organised. Like a military operation. Over the weekend, thousands of fans wanted to get his autograph, get his photograph or attend his Q&A session. The only way this was going to work was on an assembly line. I wasn't under any delusion that I was going to get quality time with him. I recalled my 'meeting' Adam West (my favourite Batman) - there was only time to say "Hello, Mr West" while he signed an autograph. At least he looked up to see who was talking to him.

Much the same thing happened with Shatner, though more surreal. As we queued to get an official photograph taken with him, we noticed how fast the line was moving - an early clue as to how long we were each going to get! As we took a corner around a partition, there was William Shatner, parked on a backless bar stool, grinning at the camera. All we had to do was step up to a line, wait for the signal, step onto the cross, smile, (flash), and move on.

The photographer was calling the shots. Well, shouting the shots, like a drill sergeant. Next! It was my turn. I had to say something to him. I used 'the Adam West manouevre'. I said "Hello, Mr Shatner!". He looked up at me, still grinning - I guess if he dropped the happy expression he'd spoil a shot and his day would get even longer. As our eyes met, and I saw his happy little face, it crossed my mind that he was thinking of how much he was making each time the flash went off.

By talking to him I'd interrupted the flow of the operation. The photographer made me hold for a second photo because we hadn't stuck to the script. I squatted down a little, so as not to tower over the happy gnome. Flash! I was done. Next!

And it was over. I'd met William Shatner. It was just the briefest of moments, but it was all worth it. To a fan of all his works, it was like an audience with the Pope, and I should know...

(That's me on the right.)

Anyone interested in over 50 years of the work of Mr Shatner should sample this unimpeachable blog, Shatner's Toupee, which reviews his many performances while taking care to also analyse the quality of 'hair acting'...

And finally, (thanks to Megan for the heads up) there's this new dance track that celebrates Mr Shatner selling himself as both an actor and a director...

WIRED (1989) - and bad movies about movie stars

WIRED

(1989, US)

Michael Chiklis IS John Belushi...

This isn't about recommending good movies. This is about movies that I've watched because I couldn't believe that Hollywood had dared to make them. When taste and logic have flown right out of the window, really exceptionally fast.

A case in point. 1978, hot off Saturday Night Live John Belushi was becoming Hollywood's hottest comedy actor. I'd never even seen Saturday Night Live (we've never had it on TV in the UK), but I was immediately won over by his performance in National Lampoon's Animal House and I wanted to see him in many more movies. He was priceless as Bluto, the legendary student anti-hero slob, a prototype of the overweight slacker that's currently in favour. The next film of his I saw was Spielberg's 1941, which he wasn't in for enough time for my liking. And then there was the role he's best remembered for, as Jake 'Joliet' Blues, in The Blues Brothers (1980). I didn't see his later films (like Continental Divide, Neighbors) which can't have had a wide release, if any, in the UK. And then he was gone. March, 1982. Dead from a speedball overdose. He was at the forefront of 'comedy as the new rock 'n' roll' but didn't live nearly long enough to reap the benefits.


Movie biographies about movie people, living or recently deceased, have to be done extremely carefully and cleverly. Wired (1989) isn't one of them. John Belushi's life and death was poorly dramatised and drained of humour. The complete opposite of a fitting tribute. I haven't seen it in years, and I always like to watch movies afresh for Black Hole reviews. Problem is, I haven't got a copy any more.

Last time I watched my VHS of Wired, I decided I'd never watch it again. I keep getting that wrong. (Don't be like Mark - don't get rid of stuff). There's always a reason for going back, but please remember the ravenous way that VHS tapes ate up shelf space. In short, I'm relying on memory here.

I originally wanted to see if Wired shed any light on why and how Belushi died. This was definitely the kind of project that Hollywood unites in avoiding, blacklisting actors who dared to show up show business under a bad light. By bad light, I mean a drug-fuelled system with no means of support to prevent their brightest stars from imploding. (Little seems to have changed, except the same self-destructive results are now possible with 'prescription drug' abuse).


Besides the cast risking the ends of their careers appearing in a controversial tragedy literally in the heart of Hollywood, on Sunset Boulevard, it was double jeopardy because they were also in a badly flawed film that was destined to be a critical and financial flop.

Wired uses the movie Sunset Boulevard as a starting point, having it narrated by a corpse, and borrowing the opening that Billy Wilder couldn't use, with a dead man sitting up in a morgue. The character of Belushi then looks back at the highlights of his life. But with so little material legally allowed, and so few actors and movie-makers allowing their names to be used in the story, the recreations of his famous sketches and behind-the-scenes dramas are almost unrecognisable.


Unsurprisingly, Wired was last seen on VHS and has never surfaced on DVD.

Wired was too abstract in its story-telling, so I tried the book, written and researched by no less than Bob Woodward, co-author of All The President's Men which blew the lid on the Watergate scandal of President Nixon's administration. But the totally uninvolving style reads like a court transcript - dense with legally-approved facts, but lacking subtext, opinion or conclusions. (A fictional representation of Woodward is played by the late J.T. Walsh).


Because it was so widely reviled, I honestly thought I'd never see the star of Wired ever, ever again. But that's why I'd like to see it again. I was halfway through watching the first season of The Shield when I looked up the previous credits of Michael Chiklis (who plays the lead, Vic Mackey). I was shocked to see he was the one, the unfunny guy who'd dared to play Belushi. I'd not seen him in anything else, having missed his heavily disguised turn in the series The Commish. Quite a career turnaround - maybe even worthy of a TV movie...


In fact, before he nabbed The Shield, Michael Chiklis again tempted fate with another celebrity impersonation. While Hollywood is now attempting to tackle a big screen version of the lives of the beloved Three Stooges, Chiklis has already appeared in a similar TV movie, as Curly. More details and pics on this are here on As Seen On TV. The Three Stooges (2000) was sort of interesting, but again, couldn't expect to be funny like the originals.


Worse still. Much, much worse. The epitome of disastrous casting in an impersonation movie is the (presumably) deliberately humorous casting of Patsy Kensit as Mia Farrow. In a TV movie made to cash in on the media storm that surrounded Woody Allen and Mia's spectacularly public bust-up, entitled Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story, I shit you not.

GEGEGE NO KITARO: NIPPON BAKURETSU (2008) - Kitaro's first feature-length anime

GEGEGE NO KITARO: NIPPON BAKURETSU

(2008, Japan)

The first ever feature-length animated Kitaro movie, released as part of the anime series' 40th anniversary, was almost lost among the many other Gegege No Kitaro productions in 2008. There was the second live-action film, the weekly anime series, as well as an OVA mini-series.

Nippon Bakuretsu, (roughly translated as Japan Erupts!) is animated in the same style as the 2007-2009 TV series, featuring all the regular characters and indeed, as many different yokai monsters as they could possibly cram in.

The story begins as usual with a spooky local disturbance, as a schoolgirl is harassed by some scary mirror demons (alarming silvery CGI claws), trying to pull her through to another dimension. Her home life is not untroubled as she has trouble pleasing her extremely strict mother.

Luckily she knows where to find Kitaro's post box and calls on the ghost boy to defend her from the mirror demons. But that's not the end of her problems at school or at home, because she's unwittingly involved in a demonic plot that threatens the entire nation of Japan with destruction that not even Enma, the Lord of the Underworld, can prevent...

The film is quite episodic, with three distinct 'chapters', almost like gaming levels, with foes that keep getting tougher. The final 'boss' that Kitaro faces is the largest yokai monster I've ever seen!

While the animation effects and creature designs are impressive, it all still looks like the TV series with an expanded budget. There's still spectacle and dynamic action that the live-action feature films lacked, I just wouldn't volunteer it as an example of a typical modern Japanese anime feature.

While the latest series has been moodier and scarier than its predecessors, the film shows Kitaro taking more of a beating than usual, with several scenes that would upset his youngest fans. A couple of the lizard monsters were also quite sexual in appearance, another departure from the family-friendly series. I'm not saying this is anything as strong as Legend of the Overfiend, but at one point a flurry of tentacles, teeth and one-eyed monsters did remind me of it...

Gegege No Kitaro: Nihon Bakuretsu is out on DVD and Blu-Ray in Japan, but also on a far cheaper Taiwanese DVD, but none of these have English subtitles. The Taiwan DVD is a good-looking 16:9 anamorphic image, with optional Chinese audio and subtitling.

For more about the many TV and movie incarnations of Gegege No Kitaro, here's my extensive overview.


Lastly, here's a Japanese trailer for the movie on YouTube...

Star Tours 1987-2010

I just found out yesterday that Star Tours, a Star Wars based ride at Disneyland is closing its doors for a new ride, Star Tours II. This makes me feel both happy and sad. I am sad to see a beloved ride leave. Star Tours opened in 1987 at Disneyland, at that time I was a 7 year old kid so I was of the perfect age to love the ride, which I did.




I can somewhat recall my first time on Star Tours, the wait seemed to take days... and that was just to get inside. The first time I went on the ride I believe hearing the wait was 3 hours. Once you finally got inside the actual Star Tours building you are greeted by a replica of the Starspeeder 3000 (the ship you ride) being repaired and C-3P0 and R2D2. It was a lot to take in as a kid, seeing actual characters from the Star Wars movie! I remember also the first time I rode Star Tours that it threw me around with all its twists and turns. As I grew up I would always long for the feelings of that first time, not knowing which way the ship would turn and being small enough to not be able to hold on. Of course I couldn't write this blog without mentioning Captian Rex, the man in charge of the Starspeeder 3000. Until recently I never knew he was voiced by Paul Reubens aka Pee Wee Herman. His famous line always is worth a chuckle. "I know this is probably your first flight, and it's mine too, ha ha."

Check out this commerical for the ride,badass!


As I grew up the ride was always a favorite of mine but as other attractions got put in the park, the lure of a ride I had been on tons of times lost some of its luster. I would always still go on the ride of course, but the small lines and my memorization of the entire ride made it loose a lot of the fun it once held. As you leave Star Tours, you see all these posters with other planets, I would often start wondering when do we get to see these other places? I guess I am getting that answer next year. Dinseyland announced that Star Tours II is coming in 2011. I am happy that the ride is getting an upgrade, Star Tours II will feature new technology and use 3D in the ride. As is set to take place sometimes between Episodes III - VI. You can see that announcement here as well as a clip from what the new ride will feature:


If you live the area, I would suggest going on one last trip on the ride. I wish I could! But now I am 100% going to make sure that I am going to Disneyland next year to ride the next chapter of Star Tours. I just hope that it can live up to the fun that I had when I was a kid.