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Posted on 08.06.10 by Charlie @ 3:19 am
 An (ahem) “exciting” screening series kicks off today at NYC’s Lincoln Center — the first-ever English-language retrospective of Argentinian sexploitation star Isabel Sarli, who went by the nickname “Coca”. And though she may not be exactly shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle, we get the point: Ms. Sarli was a very curvy lady, and she made a career out of it — first as a “Miss Argentina” beauty pageant winner, and then as Argentina’s first bona fide sex star. In the US she’s barely known, but in Argentina she was huge. Think Marilyn Monroe. In fact, Sarli rose to stardom at the same time (the late 50s/early 60s), and in largely the same types of roles as Monroe, albeit with more nudity. For those unfamiliar with genre films of this era, the term “sexploitation” may give the wrong impression — especially for a retrospective at Lincoln Center. But here it’s helpful to remember that what passed for eye-popping on-screen sexuality in 1950s Argentina is very different than what would pass for sexploitation today. As the legendary genre book Mondo Macabro explains: Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Contributors: Charlie and Venues: Film Society at Lincoln Center Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 07.13.10 by David @ 11:14 am
 This is the last in our series of articles on the Japan Cuts 2010 film festival. As usual, the festival included some truly excellent films, particularly Confessions, One Million Yen Girl, Nightmare Detective II. As part of the series, Japan Cuts is also showing a print of Memories of Matsuko, which after four years still has yet to see an official release in the U.S – the sole screening is this Thursday, July 15, at 6:!5, if you have never seen the film I highly recommend it.
Also, stay tuned over the next week or two for our wrap-up coverage of the New York Asian Film Festival, as we post reviews of additional films and our interviews with Simon Yam, Bruce Leung and Yu Irie. [For more information, visit the Japan Cuts website here - http://www.japansociety.org/japancuts. For all Japan Cuts 2010 articles, click here - http://www.cinemastrikesback.com/?cat=775.]
Nightmare Detective 2 (Japan 2008) - I enjoyed the first Nightmare Detective film as a thriller, but the mix of police procedural and Nightmare on Elm Street horror was about as commercial a film as I’ve ever seen from director Shinya Tsukamoto (even Hiruko the Goblin was too odd to have real mass appeal). Nightmare Detective II changes all of that. Vastly more personal, vastly more emotional, and, frankly, vastly better, Nightmare Detective II is the rare sequel that far surpasses the original. While the first film dropped us into the world of Kagenuma (Ryuhei Matsuda), the titular sleuth, Nightmare Detective II provides Kagenuma with tragic weight and heft to match his powers. While Tsukamoto leans heavily on the imagery and atmosphere of J-horror, his actual concerns are more intimate, dealing with the inherent horror of being unable to shut out the minds of others. Tsukamoto remains a director who is fascinating even in failure - it is wonderful to see him craft a success on par with his Vital and A Snake of June out of such humble material. Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: David and People: Ryuhei Matsuda and People: Shinya Tsukamoto and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2010 and People: Yu Aoi and People: Nao Omori and People: Miki Nakatani Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.08.10 by David @ 8:05 pm
Today is the last day of the New York Asian Film Festival, but The Japan Cuts festival at the Japan Society continues, with a number of films including the Best of the Unreleased Naughties, a celebration of some of the great films of the last decade that have inexplicably never been released in the U.S. Japan Cuts may be a little more focused on human relationships than on martial arts and blood splattering wild boars , but there is still a nice mix of genre, arthouse, and anime to be found. We’ve already covered the co-presentations of Confessions, Boys on the Run, Golden Slumber, Dear Doctor, Blood of Rebirth, and Alien vs. Ninja, but serious and casual film enthusiasts alike will definitely want to check out Parade, Zero Focus, Nightmare Detective 2, and One Million Yen Girl at a minimum. [For more information, visit the Japan Cuts website here. For all Japan Cuts 2010 articles, click here.]
Zero Focus (Japan 2009) – Zero Focus, a period murder mystery, has drawn deserved comparison to Hitchcock. Those comparisons are fair, but with its sweeping string score and psychosexual anxiety, Zero Focus evokes the claustrophobic small town mysteries of David Lynch as much as the free-floating dread of Vertigo. Impeccably crafted, Zero Focus functions best as a gorgeous evocation of its time – the late ‘50s – and place – frigid Kanazawa on the northern coast of Japan – conjuring up dazzling images of rocky shores, snowy roads and dark trains. Disappointingly, the underlying plot, in which Teiko (Ryoko Hirosue) searches for her missing husband and bodies begin to pile up, while more than serviceable, never quite lives up to the aesthetic achievements of the cinematography and sets. Teiko never gels as a character and the denouement, in which she serves almost a bystander, enforces that absence of a central performance. Nevertheless, Zero Focus is one of the most visually impressive achievements in the festival and, bolstered by a ferocious turn from Miki Nakatani, more than worth your time. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: David and People: Tatsuya Fujiwara and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Venues: The Japan Society and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2010 and People: Yu Aoi and People: Miki Nakatani Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.30.10 by David @ 11:50 am
 Starting on July 1st, half of the NYAFF screenings will be co-presented by the Japan Society as part of the Japan Cuts festival.
The Good
Confessions (Japan 2010) – I enjoyed Tetsuya Nakashima’s wacky, visually inventive Kamikaze Girls, but it in no way prepared me for the Technicolor kick-in-the-stomach that was 2006’s Memories of Matsuko, the heartbreaking story of a failed life told in the style of a joyful musical. With Confessions, the tale of a teacher’s attempt to wreak a terrible vengeance on the students she blames for the death of her daughter, Nakashima maintains his heavily operatic style (though moving away from the literal musical), using every cinematic trick in the book to portray big emotions. In that respect, Confessions frequently plays like the bastard love child of Park Chan-Wook and Shunji Iwai, transplanting Lady Vengeance’s cold, calculated protagonist and icy but flashy visual style into the fraught high school world of All About Lily Chou-Chou. However, Nakashima has far more heart than Park has ever shown and Confessions is messy in a way the clockwork vengeance world of Park could never be. A deeply flawed movie, Confessions is nevertheless fascinating for its flaws, and one of the best films in the festival. It doesn’t hurt that Nakashima has slipped in a ringer by packing the soundtrack with great cuts by Radiohead and Japanese noise-metal pioneers Boris. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: David and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Venues: The Japan Society and Venues: Film Society at Lincoln Center and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2010 and People: Tetsuya Nakashima and Production Company: Sushi Typhoon and People: Nao Omori Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.28.10 by David @ 1:29 am
More nougaty goodness from the NYAFF in Report 2. Some great screenings and guests so far, including surprise appearances by Angela Mao at Sammo’s lifetime achievement award and by Joyce Godenzi at the Eastern Condors Q+A. [Note that Boys on the Run is co-presented by the Japan Cuts festival, which starts officially on July 1.]
The Good Ip Man (HK 2008) – Ip Man, the Donnie Yen-starrer about Bruce Lee’s Wing Chun sifu, is more than a little schizophrenic in tone. The lovely first half is a subtle comedy of kung fu manners, with an uncharacteristically likable Donnie as the titular character. Hen-pecked by his wife, harassed by the local constable, and pestered by would-be disciples, Ip Man just wants to live a peaceful life, but keeps being challenged by every new master who wants to make a name for himself. The script is strong and the fighting is excellent, especially once Fan Siu-Wong (Story of Ricky) turns up as a bumpkin whose skills surpass those of all the locals but Ip. On the other hand, the second half (and the shift is not organic in the slightest) is an extremely heavy-handed bit of WWII-era patriotic propaganda, in which Ip Man stands up to Japanese invaders. Full of lingering shots of downtrodden Chinese and unsubtly swelling music, only a bravura scene where Donnie takes on ten Japanese martial artists is particularly rousing. As the final battle scene between Donnie and the imposing General Miura fails to meet expectations, the movie never tops its mid-film peak. But, oh, that first half …  Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Hong Kong and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: David and People: Donnie Yen and People: Sammo Hung and People: Simon Yam and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Venues: The Japan Society and Venues: Film Society at Lincoln Center and Movie Reviews: China and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2010 and People: Huang Bo Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.25.10 by David @ 4:57 pm
The NYAFF is upon us again! I’ve been following Subway Cinema since back when they used to hold the occasional Old School Kung Fu fest at the Anthology and Village Cinema downtown through the fancier digs at IFC, but I never thought I’d see the day when the New York Asian Film Festival invaded the hallowed halls of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater. Truly high culture has been overthrown. Of course, I’ve had the opportunity to watch both Ichi the Killer and Raw Meat at Lincoln Center, so perhaps the dichotomy was never so clear. But on with the show. As usual, the Subway gang has picked some doozies, some whoppers, and some head-scratchers (in both the good and bad sense). I wanted to pattern my festival reports after the Korean blockbuster from last year, The Good, The Bad and the Weird, but frankly, with very few exceptions, there aren’t any flat-out bad films in the pack. So as an alternative, I’ll be breaking things down into The Good, the Not-Quite-So-Good, and The Weird. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Hong Kong and Movie Reviews: Japan and Movie Reviews: South Korea and Contributors: David and Film Festivals: News and People: Takashi Miike and People: Sammo Hung and People: Simon Yam and People: Lo Meng (5 Venoms) and People: Tony Leung Ka-Fai and People: Chen Kuan-tai and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Movie Reviews: China and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 and People: Huang Bo and People: Hitoshi Matsumoto Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.23.10 by David @ 8:57 pm
Country and Year: U.S.A. (2010) Review By: David Austin
No offense to The Hurt Locker, a solidly entertaining film, but if viewers were going to watch one film about the experience of US soldiers in our current Middle Eastern engagements, it would have to be Restrepo. Photographer Tim Hetherington and journalist Sebastian Junger’s documentary feature graphically captures the boredom, terror, and disorientation of a tour of duty in a remote and hostile district of Afghanistan in a way the slick Best Picture winner never could. To get that footage, Junger and Hetherington spent time embedded with an Airborne combat platoon over the course of a year-long deployment in Afghanistan’s Korangal Valley, known as “The Valley of Death” among American forces. During that year, the American firebase and its outposts were attacked frequently (ultimately, forty-two American soldiers lost their lives in the Korangal). Indeed, in April 2010, General Stanley McChrystal – commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan until his unceremonious removal by President Obama this week – withdrew all American forces from the Valley. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 03.24.10 by David @ 4:25 pm
To coincide with its release of Ponyo on DVD and Blu-Ray (surprisingly, the first Miyazaki film to be released on Blu-Ray), Disney has re-released a selection of older Miyazaki films on DVD, some of which were starting to become a little difficult to pick up in their U.S. incarnations. The older films – Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) – are all classics and capture Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli on the cusp of becoming a national institution. Between the somewhat rough Laputa and the polished Kiki, Miyazaki perfected his style, laying the groundwork for the tremendous aesthetic triumphs of Spirited Away and Ponyo. Similarly, many of Miyazaki’s signature obsessions and themes – man’s relation to nature, the use of adolescents and children as protagonists, Jules Verne-inspired steampunk technology, and above all, flying – emerged in these films (as well as their predecessor, Nausicaa. Fittingly, while Laputa and My Neighbor Totoro were not initially financial success stories, Kiki was a hit and both Laputa and My Neighbor Totoro have since achieved recognition both critical and popular, with My Neighbor Totoro have becoming perhaps Miyazaki’s signature film. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and DVD Reviews and DVD Reviews: Japan and People: Hayao Miyazaki and Production Company: Studio Ghibli and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews Comments: None |
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Posted on 03.11.10 by David @ 3:20 pm
AKA: Män som hatar kvinnor; Millennium: Part 1 - Men Who Hate Women Review By: David Austin
[The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens in the U.S. on March 19, 2010] I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again - there are some very interesting things going on in Swedish cinema right now. After decades as the dual home of the enlightened (Ingmar Bergman) and the depraved (countless sexploitation films of varying quality), followed more recently by the indie-style charms of Lasse Hallstrom’s art-house schmaltz and Lukas Moodysson’s more personal films, a new form of Swedish genre cinema is finally starting to emerge, and I like what I see. Last year’s Let the Right One In was a brilliant piece of moody, original vampire horror. In contrast, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a mystery/thriller, far more commercial but still admirably pulpy – jam-packed with Nazis, serial killers, and hackers. Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Contributors: David and Movie Reviews: Sweden Comments: None |
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Posted on 02.26.10 by David @ 3:46 pm
Kadin Dusmani
At its heart, Kadin Dusmani is more giallo than slasher, though the famed “black gloves” of the giallo killer have been replaced by a series of Halloween fright masks. The killer targets women alphabetically by name and neighborhood, while Detective Kemal (Ekrem Bora) tries to sort through a large group of suspects and red herrings before his beloved, widowed sister-in-law, Oya, is targeted. The central mystery is well constructed, though the killer is pretty obvious from the start (if you follow the rule of superfluous characters). Moreover, aside from some gratuitous bellydancing and a bizarre (and quickly abandoned) subplot involving Oya’s sister, events move along snappily and with some style. However, my favorite aspect of the film was the soundtrack – the theme is jangly and discordant, incorporating what seemed to be a mix of synths and traditional instruments like pipes, drums and possibly even a zither. Overall, Kadin Dusmani is nice, sleazy little exploitation package. Filed under: Movie Reviews and DVD Reviews and Contributors: David and Genre: Giallo and Rating: Average ★★ and Movie Reviews: Spain and Movie Reviews: Turkey and DVD Reviews: Turkey and DVD Reviews: Spain and DVD Companies: Onar Films and DVD Companies: Palm Pictures and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews Comments: None |
Has there ever been a more apt name for a slasher film than Woman Despiser? Ironically, by the notoriously misogynistic standards of that much-maligned genre, Kadin Dusmani is relatively respectable. Which is not to say that the female cast isn’t in for some rough treatment, but rather that the filmmakers at least do not seem to share the same low opinion of womankind as their necrophiliac sex maniac killer. Sadly, that is something that can’t be said for many slashers, which pack their casts with harpies, whiners and loose women.|
Posted on 01.23.10 by Charlie @ 5:59 am
 Splice After Splice finished its North American premiere at the famous Egyptian Theater in Park City tonight, director Vincenzo Natali (best known for his sci-fi hit Cube) was on hand for a Q&A along with stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. The first question went something like “That’s the most f—–d up movie I’ve ever seen, and I mean that in a good way”. The 2nd and 3rd questions were pretty much the same, leading to theater-wide cheers. So, clearly Splice had won over the audience, but then again, it was the first “midnight movie” slot of the festival, and at that time of night audiences tend not to be too picky. As I walked home I debated how less festive audiences might respond. On the one hand I shared the audience’s general enthusiasm, but as I was watching the film I also found myself resisting certain parts as overly ridiculous. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ and Movie Reviews: Canada and Film Festivals: Sundance 2010 Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 12.03.09 by David @ 3:43 pm
Country and Year: USA (2009) Review By: David Austin  I tend to think just about anything involving Philadelphia is funny – when my wife lived there some years ago the biggest menace facing the city was the notorious Bread Squeezer, a man who ruined thousands of dollars worth of merchandise by going into Wa-Wa mini-marts and squeezing loaves of bread until they were unsalable. Frankly, Philly’s a rundown town that retains a unique character, making it perfectly suited to the grotty charm and postmodern sitcom stylings of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Sunny may not be the best show on television but, along with Curb Your Enthusiasm (and following the premature burial of Arrested Development), it’s the only one that consistently makes me laugh out loud. Filed under: Movie Reviews and TV and Cable Reviews: US and International Comments: None |
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Posted on 11.25.09 by Charlie @ 12:20 pm
 The Road Like the current arthouse favorite Precious, The Road is a film that you should see in spite of its being a heavy, depressing story. I know the film has been getting mixed reviews, but if you buy into the underlying philosophical questions, as I do, I think you’ll find the film leaves you with a lot to think about — the ending is especially intriguing. If nothing else, The Road offers great acting, impressively bleak, post-apocalyptic sets (presumably all filmed on location in Detroit), and as a bonus, film buffs should have great fun simply trying to categorize the film, as it brushes up against genres ranging from serious dramas to post-apocalyptic and zombie flicks. As is appropriate for a story taken from a Cormac McCarthy novel (who also wrote No Country For Old Men), the premise of The Road is wonderfully stark: we don’t know why it’s a post-apocalyptic setting, and nobody in the film tries to explain it. As with Night of the Living Dead, it turns out that simply asserting the situation is far more powerful than any explanation would be. Everything in the world is dying; deal with it. More specifically, virtually all animal and plant life is long dead by the time the film begins. People have only fared slightly better, and most of the few that are still alive have devolved into pure hedonistic barbarians (not entirely unlike the villains in Serenity). Kill, eat, rape, sleep, repeat. It’s pretty grim, and more importantly, it’s not clear that there’s a place in this new world for our stars, a father and son played admirably by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Without animals or plants to feed on, our stars are reduced to scavenging for whatever scraps remain from the former, civilized world. As they roam, they live in perpetual fear of all other people, most of whom appear to depend on cannibalism to survive and, we soon come to see first hand, would kill them in a second if given the chance. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ Comments: None |
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Posted on 11.13.09 by Charlie @ 6:29 pm
 Good Hair There is something ironic, maybe even a little disturbing, about last night’s screening of Good Hair, which kicked off Livia Bloom’s new documentary series “Documentaries in Bloom” at the Maysles Institute in Harlem. As I discuss below, the film itself is excellent and stands out as one of this year’s must-see films. But as the latest in a seemingly endless series of documentaries that ends with a competition, Good Hair also exacerbates an alarming trend, which goes something like this: it’s not enough to document a compelling subject, these days you need something a little more entertaining — a twist ending, a Hollywood “arc” or, the recent overwhelming favorite, the inherent suspense of a competition. As I sat in the Maysles Institute last night, I couldn’t help but think that if this is the new model for documentaries, some of our most celebrated documentary filmmakers wouldn’t cut it today, perhaps not even the Maysles brothers themselves. How would their classic Salesman (1968) be received today? Can you imagine it recast to end in a competition among the salesman, as we all sat on the edge of our seats waiting to the end to see who would win? That may sound silly, but if you sit back for a moment and think about recent breakout documentaries, the pattern is stunning: Spellbound (spelling bee competition), Wordplay (crossword competition), Air Guitar Nation (air guitar competition), King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters (king kong video game competition), Murderball (paralympic rugby competition) and Pulling John (arm-wrestling competition) to name a few. Now admittedly, they’re all wonderful, enjoyable films, but what makes Good Hair such a bizarre addition to this club is that at least these earlier documentaries are documenting something that’s inherently competitive. After all, it’s hard to fault Spellbound for being structured around a spelling bee. But with the surge of competition films that followed it’s also clearly a game of copycat, a gimmick that film producers can bank on as a “tried and true” pattern to ensure success. And it’s far more alarming to see this gimmick extended to Good Hair, a film whose premise has virtually nothing to do with the competition that anchors it. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: USA and Contributors: Charlie and Rating: Good ★★★ Comments: 2 Comments |
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Posted on 07.27.09 by David @ 9:27 am
AKA: Rampage; Turkish Rambo; Fearless Review By: David Austin  Korkusuz, perhaps better known unofficially as “Turkish Rambo,” is a classic example of the Turkish knock-off film. Back in the day, the Turks made a cottage industry of aping foreign films with wacky, low-budget adaptations using local talent, resulting in bizarro versions of Star Wars (The Man Who Saved the World), Superman (Superman Returns), and E.T. (Badi). Director Cetin Inanc was an old hand at this type of film, having previously directed The Man Who Saved the World, perhaps the most famous of the Turkish adaptations, and Turkish Rocky during the eighties. Of course, back in the sixties, Inanc proved he could do more with Iron Claw the Pirate (see review here), one of the more enjoyable masked hero films of Turkish cinema’s heyday. Here, Inanc transplants Rambo into a thinly fictionalized version of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict, and replace grimacing, monosyllabic muscle man Sylvester Stallone with grimacing, monosyllabic muscle man Serdar (using his own name for his character, possibly to avoid confusion by the actor). The plot is considerably more convoluted than it needed to be, but in its essentials involves Serdar’s undercover insertion into a mountain bandit base run by the entertainingly, old-fashioned villain Ziya (Huseyin Peyda, a dead ringer for Vincent Price in looks and spirit). Serdar gets in good with Ziya’s stupider brother and soon is helping the bandits with some sort of goofy plan that involves raiding a friendly bandit’s headquarters for no apparent reason. Aiding Serdar are Captain Omer (Swayze-esque Togrul Meteer) and a peasant girl who falls for our hero. Korkusuz is justly famous (or should I say infamous, for two stupefyingly silly and entertaining action scenes. The first is a one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat between Serdar and one of the lead bandits. It’s awesomely awkward in that uniquely Turkish style, where energy and can-do spirit trump choreography and skill. Filed under: Movie Reviews and DVD Reviews and Contributors: David and Rating: Average ★★ and Movie Reviews: Turkey and DVD Reviews: Turkey and DVD Companies: Dark Maze Comments: None |
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