by ·Comments Off on Blade of Fury (1993, Sammo Hung)

Due to my copy’s wonky subtitles and my general lack of historical context and, uh, my inability to pay close attention to plots and alliances in movies, I dunno what exactly happened, but I know they all died heroically in the end, for the future of China.

The Big Sword lays waste to the Japanese:

Wang Wu (Yang Fan) is our main furious swordsman, getting his entire Big Sword troop killed by the Japanese in the opening scenes. He meets young masters Ti Lung (A Better Tomorrow) and Cynthia Khan (star of a Yes Madam sequel/ripoff the same year), they team up with some government guys who are trying to “reform” the government (sword-involved reform).

Our Boy Sammo:

Plenty of wire jumps and trampolines, swordfights and beheadings, people getting shot in the face, Sammo over/under-cranking every action scene. Clearly made in the wake of the Once Upon a Time movies, with its mix of action and historical politics – and from the writer of parts II and III, and with a small role for Rosamund Kwan as a rich lady who thinks Wang is quite nice. Sammo gives himself one fight playing a prison guard – it’s great, but all the fights are great. Not sure where James Tien appeared – one of the camel riding raiders? – but this movie notably has the same ending as his Fist of Fury, which I should’ve seen coming from the title.

Nefarious Ngo (Master Wong’s dad in OUATIC3) loses to The Big Sword:

by ·Comments Off on Lousy Carter (2023, Bob Byington)

Byington continues to be the most consistently funny dude in the movies. This didn’t make me die laughing like Frances Ferguson, still a very good time, watching Carter (David Krumholtz) suffer. Lousy thinks that he’s dying, turns out his charts got mixed up, then he’s immediately murdered.

by ·Comments Off on Lost in the Night (2023, Amat Escalante)

Not a great title, I keep forgetting which movie this was. It’s more like Mexican Parasite – Emiliano (Robe of Gems) is searching for his disappeared activist mom and after a tip from a dying cop he gets a job with a rich social-media-artist family, and hangs out with their daughter while things fall apart between a local religious cult and the cartels and the family’s own secrets and greed.

by ·Comments Off on Evil Does Not Exist (2023, Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

Lovely and not mysterious at all until suddenly it is. The community responds to a tourism company: “The very essence of this village is at stake.” The company has sent a couple of know-nothing PR types – main dude Takumi pokes holes in their plan but also drives them around and indulges the guy’s desire to do manly backwoods things like chop wood. Then Takumi’s daughter goes missing, and the PR dude must be killed to maintain nature’s balance (I guess). No big stars – the woman who runs the local noodle shop and wants to maintain the water quality for her broth costarred in Happy Hour. Hamaguchi reveals in Cinema Scope that it was put together rather experimentally, says his own perspective is usually closer to the invading PR people than the rural residents.

The PR people surprised to hear they have to protect their grounds from deer:

The deer they never considered:

by ·Comments Off on Don’t Play Us Cheap (1972, Melvin Van Peebles)

A filmed version of his own play, which was a stage adaptation of his own novel, which he wrote in French then translated to English – he filmed first, opened the play with the same cast, then released the movie. Sounds exhausting. Instead of the final film in the Van Peebles box set, Criterion could just as easily have released this as a double-feature with To Sleep With Anger, each of them about a happy Black household infiltrated by forces of evil.

A couple of passing imps decide to stop in Harlem to ruin a party thrown by Esther Rolle of Good Times. Instead of going in together, Trinity arrives first and completely fails to wreak havoc then falls for the birthday girl. When he’s belatedly joined by Devil David (Avon Long, who discovered Lena Horne in the 1930s), they only succeed in chasing off the Johnsons, a late-arriving condescending couple and their giant son, whom everyone else is glad to see go.

It’s a musical, and I wish any of the songs was great – too gospelly for me – but there’s a cool bit at the end when everyone’s singing what’s on their mind at once, the whole party semi-harmonizing and semi-chaotic.

Lisa Thompson:

Van Peebles frequently overlaps two different images to make a contrast that is then commented upon in a third shot, such as on the dangers of evil or the inability to stay true to oneself. Van Peebles occasionally uses the same overlapping technique with sound, playing with dissonance and harmony as multiple characters sing their own signature parts, or a single character sings while the others join in a communal chorus.

–
Three Pickup Men for Herrick (1957)

Herrick needs three pickup men, but five showed up. The white boss picks the one white guy, then the tough looking guy, then the young guy, and the rejects walk back home. No dialogue, Light humming and harmonica on the soundtrack.

–
Sunlight (1957)

I think the pretty girl married someone else because the guy she danced with at the restaurant said you can’t get married without money… but I don’t think restaurant guy was the hat guy who robs some lady and is chased by the cops and ends up at the wedding… maybe the older guy at the wedding is a different hat guy? Try paying attention next time?

by ·Comments Off on Ren Faire (2024, Lance Oppenheim)

I should’ve done this in a TV roundup with The Sympathizer since I have nothing to say about it, but too late, I already created the post. Long doc about Texas Renaissance Festival founder “King” George’s half-hearted attempts to delegate and hand off power (and to date young women with natural breasts at the olive garden) and the employees and would-be successors whom he keeps screwing over. Lance shoots the hell out of it. Good enough to make us consider his sperm doc.

Lance is aware of the artifice and performance, wishes for a “documentary-subject performance” oscar in his Vulture interview.

by ·Comments Off on Perfect Days (2023, Wim Wenders)

Some unimportant details:
– He always plays classic rock hits in the car, and we’ll see the song start and end, but his trip has been edited down visually, so the music and the picture run on different timelines, Dunkirk-style.
– He won’t sell his cassettes for a coworker, but lends the guy all his cash then has to sell a cassette anyway to afford the gas home.
– I know the movie title references the Lou Reed song he plays in his apartment, but then is his niece Niko’s name a Nico reference?

Bilge Ebiri has got the important stuff.

by ·Comments Off on Criterion Channel shorts watched July 2024

Watched some shorts on CC. I only mention the source because we know how I love to lean on the screenshot button, but streaming restricts my personal freedom to steal images. And also because they deserve to be mocked for still using the Baby’s First Streaming Platform template, which says “season one” under the titles of short films.

She and Her Cat (1999, Makoto Shinkai)

Talky, narrated by a cat who is sexually attracted to his female human owner, passing the seasons together. Limited animation, mostly gently panning across stills. Not too exciting, but I suppose its success got Shinkai (who also narrated) the budget for Voices of a Distant Star. When Your Name blew up, this got a sequel/remake, and Shinkai returned to narrate.

Voice of a Distant Star (2002, Makoto Shinkai)

The UN Space Force naturally needs morose teens to pilot giant space robots, preferably while wearing their school uniforms. Star pilot Mikako likes a boy called Noboru (same voice actors as the cat movie), and though she’s stationed on Jupiter’s moons they still text using 2002-model flip phones. When she’s sent further away to fight evil aliens, it gets harder to communicate since each message takes years to arrive.

Chuu Chuu (2021, Mackie Mallison)

Medium takes, then quick edits… digital stability with low-gauge colors… focusing on an aging Japanese grandma. Then a section discussing touchy family relationships and identity from the perspective of a doorbell cam. Not as many birds as I was hoping for, but there is a birdwatching section towards the end, then a projector throwing fast-cut home movies over a kid’s face.

Fly, Fly Sadness (2015, Miryam Charles)

Story of an explosion that affected everyone in the country, so now they all have the same girlish speaking voice, coincidentally the voice of the director, who narrates over short clips and loops. CC didn’t care to correct the subtitles.