by ·Comments Off on Blue Velvet docs

Catching up with some Lynch-related artifacts, I’ve got two different behind-the-scenes docs about Blue Velvet.

Blue Velvet Revisited (2016, Peter Braatz)

Movies are magic, but making movies is dull. Occasionally has sync sound, asking unenlightening Qs to Lynch, or sometimes overlaying shoot audio, or sometimes just playing trippy music, flashing up the old footage with fancy titles – it’s tough when you’re trying to piggyback your art off one of my favorite films.

It’s a Strange World (2019, Shane Callahan & Benedict Fancy)

In the first five seconds someone says the town was like a character in the film. Director of the first doc appears in this doc. Props guys tell stories about the ear, the “In Dreams” worklight mic, the brain splatter, a steadicam shot on the stairs, some random little things.

by ·Comments Off on Ghost in the Shell 2 (2004, Mamoru Oshii)

Very CG movie, but that feels appropriate for the content. Some idiot corporation has produced a bulletproof kung-fu sexbot, and the cybercops have to stop the killing while negotiating different levels of reality, like a boring eXistenZ.

by ·Comments Off on Nowhere (1997, Gregg Araki)

Polishing off the Criterion set, and it’s another horny ensemble movie with Argento lighting, the music good as ever. Group of kids dying off one by one, from murderous lizard alien or homi/sui/cide. “Our generation is gonna witness the end of everything.”

by ·Comments Off on Top Secret (1984, Zucker & Abrahams)

Extremely cold war comedy with Val Kilmer (RIP) as a sort of Beach Boy Elvis who meets a girl and gets caught up in her family spy plot. The ZAZ group’s followup to Police Squad, pretty decent.

Omar Sharif:

by ·Comments Off on Galaxy Quest (1999, Dean Parisot)

Never seen this before! Rock monster digi-fx are bad, the muppet fx and the acting all hold up, especially V-Mars’ dad as the lead alien. I liked that Justin Long’s hopeless sci-fi nerd is named Brandon, and enjoyed seeing Sigourney’s curse word get blatantly PG-13’d. Twenty years later Parisot made the very good Bill & Ted 3.

by ·Comments Off on Broken Rage (2024, Takeshi Kitano)

Very good concept, two-part movie combining various Beat/Kitano personas. In each half he’s an elite hitman who gets recognized during a job, so the cops enlist him as a mole to take down a drug dealer. But it’s a typical crime movie for the first half and a silly-assed comedy in the second. Feels long for a one-hour movie, after remembering that zany Japanese comedies are rarely funny to me.

by ·Comments Off on Violent Cop (1989, Takeshi Kitano)

V-Cop is introduced beating up a high schooler who attacked a homeless guy, hell yeah. The new chief likes his style but wants not to be disgraced by association, V-Cop doesn’t care, has little respect for the bosses. Turns out cops are supplying the drug dealers, and VC’s baddie-killing investigation technique gets him fired. He’s having a nice day as a civilian when punks kidnap his sister and a hitman stabs him and blows a bystanders’s head off. Final showdown: VC and the hitman blast each other full of holes, he finishes off his sister, the drug trade carries on with barely a hitch. Great theme music, a familiar Satie tune.

I liked the rookie partner’s expression when VC ran over a suspect:

by ·Comments Off on Gaucho Gaucho (2024, Dweck & Kershaw)

From Long Island car people to Italian dog people to Argentine horse people, Dweck gets around. Real beauty in every moment of this, and I’m not just saying that because my cinephile senses are stimulated by the black-and-white photography, but maybe just a little bit. The gauchos try to keep juvenile cows safe from the hated condors, teach their kids the skills, excel at rodeo competitions, fight against the school dress code, and reflect on their cool lives.

by ·Comments Off on Scorched Earth (2024, Thomas Arslan)

Our man Trojan is back, still doing clean, efficient jobs, and still getting screwed over afterwards when the client decides to kill his team instead of paying.

Smooth-haired hitman Viktor kills Computer Chris first, then old buddy Luca, while museum lawyer Rebecca is working both sides trying to recover the stolen painting.

Computer Chris is apparently old enough to have been in Petzold’s The State I Am In, Luca had parts in Head-On and the latest Guy Ritchie joint, new girl Marie Leuenberger does a lotta TV and hopefully has a bright future.