Intrigue in 1913 – Brigitte Lin is a general’s daughter working secretly for the rebellion along with opera daughter Sally Yeh (also of the unrelated Shanghai Blues, blind girl in The Killer). Cherie Chung (Winners & Sinners, Once a Thief) is just trying to steal some jewels and gets involved, not unlike Hayley Atwell in Mission: Impossible. Pretty cool movie with overcomplicated plot, and the audio commentary wasn’t doing much for me (it’s some podcasters with dodgy mics) so I’ll defer to letterboxers Matt and MDF.
Tag: 1980’s
Warlock (1989, Steve Miner)
Some of my memorial screenings are more respectful than others… RIP Julian Sands, who was a better actor than allowed by this movie. The Salem witch hunters got this one right, hoping to hang Sands then burn him over a basket of cats, but he escapes to the present day with Richard E. Grant close behind. No doubt due to the Earth’s rotation, the time travel magic also lands them in Malibu. It’s all very Highlander.
We could’ve just rewatched A Room With a View:
Warlock Sands has to collect leaves from Satan’s book, killing and cursing people along the way. He kills a guy who also got killed in Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th Part 3, and curses his wife Lori “Footloose” Singer to age rapidly via ever-whiter wigs, then drinks the boiled fat of an unbaptized boy to gain flying powers. Grant teams up with Singer and a Mennonite to perform an ancient ritual… just kidding, they chuck a weathervane through his body then smash his hand with a hammer. But Sands escapes to the godless city of Boston and assembles the book using crappy fx, then Lori makes him melt and humanity is saved until the sequel, which I’m in no hurry to watch. David Twohy wrote this and made Timescape before hitting the big time with The Fugitive. Sands returned in part 2, from the director of Hellraiser 3, then Ashley Laurence stars in Warlock 3, along with a new Warlock who was (coincidence, I’m sure) also in a Highlander.
Kung-Fu Master! / Jane B. by Agnes V. (1987-88 Agnes Varda)
Kung-Fu Master! is narrated in past tense by Jane Birkin’s character, who becomes interested in a teenage classmate of her daughter. They invite him on vacation to London, where Jane’s older daughter catches on to their affair, causing huge scandal. The movie is also about video games, and increasingly about the AIDS crisis. The silly title combined with unappealing premise kept me away for years, but this is a proper movie, beautifully made, and a warm family affair (Birkin’s daughters are her real daughters, and the boy is Mathieu Demy).
When Jane shows off the piano in her kitchen in the documentary, I realized the Kung-Fu interiors were shot at her house. But Jane B. is not a documentary, at least not exactly. They put different wigs on her and she acts out alternate lives, both from her own fantasies and stories contributed by Agnes – including an extended “Maurel & Lardy” routine with Laura Betti (the servant in Teorema).
The Falls (1980, Peter Greenaway)
Making more movie lists over here, re-categorizing things, so my first screening from the new project is The Falls by fellow categorizer Greenaway. 92 sections of varying length (some are major characters who will be referenced later, some are just represented with a title card – half the subjects of discussion don’t even appear). All people affected by the Violent Unknown Event (which took place at least three decades before the present interviews) are affected in different ways, but all have interest in birds and flight. They suffer different ailments and dreams, speak in one or more of “the mutant languages,” and are classified as one of “the four newly formulated genders.”
Absurd concepts mixed in with bland facts and read/performed very straight. At one point the narrator is shown onscreen then muted as a later narrator updates his report. Murders and accidents and conspiracies… callbacks and self-references (to PG’s earlier shorts). Not sure if someone being struck by lightning is a reference to the same year’s Act of God. A sinister force called FOX, a society for ornithological extermination, comes up a few times. Tulse Luper is in this, as an influential author whose stories sometimes seep into the film.
Influenced by TV sketch comedy? “Fortune favors the prepared mind.” I searched for “Greenaway” with “Monty Python” and found this interview/manifesto.
On the Silver Globe (1988, Andrzej Zulawski)
Kind of a fully mad Solaris meets The New World, written by someone in love with death monologues. Astounding costume design, though after a while you realize all the locations are the same couple beaches and caves, and that the director’s opening statement about this movie being canceled during production wasn’t bullshit.
First-person camera from astronauts’ shoulder-mounted webcams, and people being really intense about philosophy. A long, delirious dying rant isn’t intense enough for Zulawski, who jumpcuts the speech, cutting out pauses and gaps between words. The astronauts find a new planet, their kids beget more kids and invent religion, then Astronaut Jesus Marek arrives from their home planet and shakes things up. In the meantime, humanity has become enslaved by the psychic sherm creatures. Marek tries talking with the sherms, whines about the earth woman who left him, then he finally falls for a girl on this planet and stops whining as much.
Not looking up all these characters and actors (or even recounting the rest of the plot), but I assume some of these people are returning from The Devil, just from their ranting endurance. Feels at times like a massive Dune-scale epic, then you realize you’ve spent the last half hour watching people in cool costumes rant on the seashore.
Never model yourself after Jesus, or you know what might happen:
Yes, Madam! (1985, Corey Yuen)
Petty thieves named Aspirin (Mang Hoi of Zu Warriors), Strepsil and Panadol accidentally end up with that secret microfilm that everyone in the 80’s was after. Wild-haired John Shum Kin-Fun and Tsui Hark must be buddies – they also costarred in RoboCop ripoff I Love Maria. Unfortunately for them, crime boss James Tien is after the microfilm, and supercop Michelle Yeoh and her British counterpart Cynthia Rothrock are on the case. This is in Criterion’s “Michelle Yeoh Kicks Ass” collection but the white lady kicks 70% more ass.
Cameos by three legends covered in sheetrock dust:
Tien in back with his two main henchmen:
Body Double (1984, Brian De Palma)
After Rotterdance I was in a Rear Vertigo Window Remix mood, and De Palma got me covered. It’s suspense-comedy, with lead guy Jake (Nancy’s sympathetic doctor in Nightmare on Elm Street 3) as the world’s most awkward loser, set up to witness a fake crime. He’s introduced being fired from the movie Vampire’s Kiss since he can’t perform his grave scene due to high anxiety claustrophobia, then going home to catch his wife enthusiastically cheating. He does get to kiss the girl he’s stalking (Deborah Shelton of Plughead Rewired: Circuitry Man II) after almost chasing down her purse snatcher, but fails to save her life in an absolute mess of a driller-killer murder scene.
Enter Melanie Griffith, too thin to be a porn star. Now an accomplished stalker, Jake starts acting money after his sex scene with Melanie, impresses her with the fancy place where he’s staying, then reveals that he’s familiar enough with her work to have recognized her through the telescope in the staged crime scene. He overcomes his claustrophobia, defeats the murderer, and gets re-cast in Vampire’s Kiss. Really not a great movie but pretty fun. Between Scarface and Wise Guys, De Palma had to get the 1980s out of his system, making a movie that contains a whole Frankie Goes to Hollywood music video.
Tenebre (1982, Dario Argento)
Optimistic after Argento’s Four Flies, I jumped ahead a decade to a film that I supposedly watched back in the 90’s but don’t remember at all except for the doberman scene. Editing and dialogue and acting all bad (I switched a couple times, settled on the English version), but lighting good, and that’s all you need.
Black-gloved killer vs. the lighting:
Anthony Franciosa plays an American in Italy (in Across 110th Street he played an Italian in America), a famous author on a book tour, whose acquaintances keep ending up dead. It’s a nonsensical murder mystery with at least three black-gloved killers, including the author, who then dies in a freak modern art accident. Fortunately, John Saxon is here (with a hat on!) to save the movie, the only guy onscreen having any fun. Saxon eventually gets stabbed, the sole survivor being the author’s secretary Daria Nicolodi. Other victims include the detectives, combative audience member Mirella D’Angelo (Caligula), the author’s ex, and Lara Wendel of Ghosthouse as the girl chased by dobermans.
Saxon, with hat:
Some cool camerawork, including a scene where the camera climbs the walls of an apartment building, a precursor to that Massive Attack video. The cool 1970’s synth soundtracks have devolved into 1980’s synth-rock by the Suspiria gang. Commentary guys Jones & Newman say it’s Argento’s most 80’s movie, and influenced by Possession. They supposedly love the film, and spend half their time making fun of it… I switched to McDonagh’s commentary, which was immediately better, but has too much narration. Didn’t stick around for an explanation of why Argento has his stand-in author draw attention to the sexism in his own movies.
Incredible scene:
Swamp Thing (1982, Wes Craven)
Adrienne Barbeau visits swamp scientist Ray Wise, when bad guys attack, wanting the secret formula. I saw Barbeau last week in The Fog, and saw this plot last week in Five Dolls for an August Moon… but in Five Dolls the scientist got dispatched with a rifle, and in this one Ray’s plant-animal-hybrid concoction turns him into Swamp Thing.
S.T. uses his E.T. healing powers on the cool kid who assists Barbeau:
I guess it’s nice how the wide shots emulate photos of bigfoot sightings. Everyone seems to have done the best they could, given low budget and talent. Shapeshifting baddie Arcane also starred in a 1977 Dracula and a haunted mirror movie. His strongman Bruno returned to the swamp for Hell Comes to Frogtown, and the guy in the monster suit would be back in Return of Swamp Thing.
Bruno gets turned into a little beastie, just for fun:
