LeRolls - January 10, 2010, 5:24pm

Might have the check out Running Turtle especially since I liked Chaser.

You’ll probably be happy to learn that Nah-Hong Jin’s next picture, “Murderer”, is due out in Korean theaters this summer, then.

Jon, I didn’t mean anything unfriendly or negative. And I realize now, in this context, that my comment appears as a bit of a head-scratcher because I didn’t post my glowing review of “Possessed” here. So how would you kmow!? I thought I had posted it.

I’ve followed a number of good recommendations from you in these pages. I commented before that I do much better looking into the many things you like than avoiding the ones you don’t.

No hard feelings, Sitenoise.

Apocalypse, la 2ème guerre mondiale, in 6 episodes, directed by Isabelle Clarke and Daniel Costelle. Narration by Matthieu Kassovitz and soundtrack by Kenji Kawai. This WWII documentary, which cost 4 million euros to produce and two years to make, during which time researchers pored over some 2,000 hours of archival footage, attracted 6.2 million viewers when it aired on France 2 television last year. I was skeptical myself concerning the colorization of the digitally restored archival images, but fellow twitchers can now consider me part of the unwashed masses when I say that this must be the very best WWII documentary currently available on video. Anyhow, the set is available on Region B Blu ray as well as on Region 2 DVD (3 discs).

16X9 anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions
French subtitles for the hearing impaired
English Soundtrack
French Soundtrack

Daimajin
Dark Angel (I Come in Peace)
Inglorious Bastards
9

LeRolls - January 18, 2010, 5:05am

Dark Angel (I Come in Peace)

Nice one!  Lots of fun.
No nonsense Dolphy funstuffs.  You have to love the killer CD weapon.

42nd Street Freak - January 18, 2010, 7:24am

LeRolls - January 18, 2010, 5:05am

Dark Angel (I Come in Peace)

Nice one!  Lots of fun.
No nonsense Dolphy funstuffs.  You have to love the killer CD weapon.

“THEN GO IN PIECES!”  Gotta love the Dolph!

“Watchmen” - The Ultimate Cut.

I’ll come right out and say it.  I love it.

Thought it a fine (as best as we can hope for, or would actually work as a live action movie) adaptation done with massive care, time, money and love.
As a sane fan of the graphic novel (and with a realistic head on my non-fanboy shoulders) I understood you would have to remove parts and layers of the overall novel experience…but in this (only way to see it) ‘Ultimate Cut’ the makers have done a stunning job as far as the film standing on it’s own goes and a fine job as adaptors.

Rorschach was spot on perfect in every way and actually looked more effective in the film than he he did even in the graphic novel.
The world was superbly realised, the story epic in scope but still personal and easy to follow even for those with no knowledge of the novel, the FX were often stunning, the action brutal and effective and the mixture of macho cliche, parody, homage, observation, commentary, fun, thrills, laughter, heartache and tragedy was mixed almost as well in the film as in the graphic novel.

And until you’ve seen the proper version of “Watchmen” in it’s ‘Ultimate Cut’ form AND THEN watched the excellent version of “under the Hood” on the ‘Complete Story’ DVD…you have not really seen the “Watchmen” film.

Taken as a whole the DVD experience of “Watchmen” is a mini marvel as far as adapting such a great and ,multi-layered book and it’s one hell of a well made package done with massive love.

In these days of massive DVD/Blu-Ray sales worldwide, with increasingly big and powerful home theatre systems…the cinema version of a film is becoming less and less and important and is almost gone as far as a definitive viewing experience of a film goes.

The excellent (as best an adaptation as we could have hoped for…and if you are against ANY adaptation don’t see the bloody thing then) ‘Ultimate Cut’ and the separate ‘Under the Hood’ feature (done as a TV documentary) make for a masterwork in my view.

Loved the graphic novel, loved the ‘Ultimate Cut’ and I can;t understand the hate for the movie (which actually improved the ending of the graphic novel by easily and effectively ditching the, never would work in a film anyway, rather goofy ‘octopus’ monster).
Essential viewing.

“A Dangerous Man”.

Nice one Stevie!
Stevie the Seagull flaps his chubby wings extra hard and manages to halt his career plummet (yet again) after the unwatchable lows of “Kill Switch”.
This is well paced, well directed, wonderfully brutal (wince like a wincy thing at the meaty, crunchy, ‘rod in the back of the neck death) and entertaining stuff that effectively juggles many different groups of characters, from Seagal’s delightfully cliche ‘ex Special Forces’ (of course!!) troubled hero to Russian mobsters (Seagal’s current fetish), Chinese criminal gangs, corrupt Police and the Chinese military.

The dialogue is also a gem of multifaceted delights.  Made better by Seagal’s obvious unwillingness to see trash dialogue AS trash dialogue.
Highlights are (in a wonderfully unhinged moment for his character) Seagal’s pronouncement to a would-be mugger that he’s going to “Fuck you up ugly”, his remark to the lead bad guy “Where I come from, we say death is emptiness.  In that case, I’ve been dead for many years” and a stunningly delightful line from a Russian mobster to the corrupt Police Captain, “Where I come from we fuck Cops in the mouth when we’ve run out of farm animals”!
Genius!

Seagal is thankfully not doubled except for a couple of ‘throwing the bad guy across the room’ stunts and his ultra-fast punches, blocks and thudding kicks still manage to impress despite his extra bulk (though again, he looks better than he has done).
the gunplay is not as blood drenched or in your face as that of “Renegade Justice” and tthe support characters do more of it…but again it’s effective and violent enough.

Trashy, cheesy, nasty, fast paced, no-nonsense funstuffs!
Now try to keep the quality constant Stevie!

Yesterday my copy of “Chamagodo: Asian Corridor of Heaven” arrived, and I plunked in the first disc to quickly check out some of the pretty pictures. Normally I wouldn’t do that (I hate spoilers and I don’t first check the end of a novel either) but in a series of documentaries I think such behavior is allowed.
 
To cut a long story short: three hours later I had watched two of the six episodes in their entirety, and had already rewatched parts of both several times. This is absolutely unbelievable material and already one of my finest acquisitions in high-def (even though the picture is 1080-i instead of 1080-p), regardless of how the other four episodes will turn out…

“Mirrors”

Some effective moments and some good performances with one of the most unexpected, and shockingly nasty,  deaths seen for a long time.

But the end (seems this guy just loves dubious endings) is a slight head scratcher.
Yes I understand WHAT happened, but I don’t know HOW it happened. 
Unless the ‘mirror’ aspect of the plot was not directly linked with the demon and the film is saying mirrors (or reflective surfaces) have this effect ANYWAY…even with no demon in them.
It was never explained.

But still an effective supernatural shocker, with some nicely nasty visuals/FX.

“The Spirit”

Holy hellfire and hamsters!  Perhaps the most annoying movie ever made!

Seems Frank Miller decided to shove all the crap, really annoying, characters he had at the bottom of his waste bin after doing the wonderful “Sin City”...give them to actors who also decided to give really annoying performances…and gave them all really annoying dialogue to say.

Was this comedy?  Parody?  Homage?  Slapstick cartoon?  Thriller?  Serious crime drama? 40’s Noir?
It had all of those aspects, all done badly,  and none of it fitted together and i actually gave up an hour in and skipped to the end.

Damn!  This was just so annoying.  Annoying in every way! 
A pox on it!

Critters
Critters 2

Might do a podcast.

Ard Vijn - January 21, 2010, 12:05am

Yesterday my copy of “Chamagodo: Asian Corridor of Heaven” arrived, and I plunked in the first disc to quickly check out some of the pretty pictures. Normally I wouldn’t do that (I hate spoilers and I don’t first check the end of a novel either) but in a series of documentaries I think such behavior is allowed.
 
To cut a long story short: three hours later I had watched two of the six episodes in their entirety, and had already rewatched parts of both several times. This is absolutely unbelievable material and already one of my finest acquisitions in high-def (even though the picture is 1080-i instead of 1080-p), regardless of how the other four episodes will turn out…

Ard, glad to hear you’re enjoying it. Next time, drop me a line before you go spending all of your allowance;)
I might have to pick this one up myself, then. Incidentally, Amazon UK informed me that Planet Earth is already on its way…

Last night was one of the most enjoyable I’ve had here in quite some time. Kyobo bookstore text messaged me to let me know that my special order of “Selected Items from the Jangseogak Collection” had arrived. The 319pp book, published by the Academy of Korean Studies, showcases 126 items from the royal archives. The book is beautifully printed and bound, and is now one of the most prized possessions in my library. While I was at the store, I found a region 3 copy of Lu Chuan’s The Missing Gun for under $5.00. After shopping, I went to Jagalchi fish market, where the father of one of my students runs a stall. He selected some fish for me, and took it to the restaurant upstairs, where I had a fabulous meal. When I got home, I watched The Missing Gun, and was astounded by the breakneck pacing of the opening (at some points during the film, I was reminded of Javier Fesser’s mind-blowing short, El secdleto de la tlompeta), Wen Jiang’s performance, and the excellent scoring chosen for this unusual comedy. I had to ask myself, is Lu Chuan a genius, or merely China’s most gifted living director? Unsurprisingly, upon the film’s release, critics called the film uneven and the photography sloppy, even going so far as to assert that the director had no idea what kind of film he wanted to make. What did surprise me is that some critics even attacked the beautiful-looking anamorphic transfer (which I assume to be same as the Columbia’s Korean version), which has crisp detail, excellent contrast and a very spacious soundtrack. Highly recommended.

“The Hurt Locker”

Superb war film making.

No treasonous propaganda, no false-liberal handwringing…all ‘for or against’ politics are left behind and at last Hollywood has made a film simply about the men in combat and how they face near-death every day.

The bomb squad aspect cranked up the tension to massive levels and you really got a sense of what it’s like for one man to literally walk towards death and hold it in his hand…purely to protect civilians and property the supposed ‘resistance’ could not care less about.

The film also (maddeningly) shows how often troops needlessly face death because they are literally scared about firing their weapons in case they shoot at a civilian (whatever that means in a war where the enemy has no uniform, walks alongside the rest of the population and routinely blows that population up and shoots through them to kill the soldiers).
It was shocking to see the taxi scene where a man with obvious hostile intent faced nothing but shouts as he sped towards the soldiers.  And even then no one shot and instead crowded around the car to drag the taxi driver out. 
Guess it was lucky, as a whole crowd of American soldiers jumped on his car, he did not also have a bomb inside!

This ever questioning routine of whether or not you are allowed to shoot is shown time and time again in the movie, as soldiers die for no other reason than they don’t want to be crucified in the weasel press and even hauled up in front of a court of law!
This ‘one hand tied behind your back’ way of fighting a war would be bad enough anyway, but when you are fighting some of the most fanatic, ruthless killers in the world…it can literally be suicide.

It also showed how these indiscriminate bombs are so hard to spot, defuse and keep track of (where bombers go so far as to use the corpses of children as bombs) and how these brave guys stay remotely sane is anyone’s guess.
And as such Jeremy Renner’s (as always) great character essay of a man addicted to conflict and risk is deserving of any and all awards.

Superb performances by all the main cast, nice ‘giving death a face’ cameos, spot on editing, directing and technical specs all add up to give us one of the most atmospheric and scary war films ever made and at last Hollywwod has honoured its soldiers instead of spitting at them while stroking their enemy’s brow.

“Whiteout”

Pretty cliche, nothing groundbreaking or really surprising screenplay/plot wise but the film’s snowy wilderness setting and the way it is constantly and cleverly used to define (and re-difine) it’s action/chase sequences pushes the film into very interesting territory.

The fact that cop and killer have to go through critical life saving preparations (from what clothes they MUST wear to hooking themselves onto utterly essential guide ropes) before they can flee or give chase is well utilised to crank up the tension and add an extra, unusual, level to the standard cat and mouse set piece.

Kate Beckinsale (looking damn good) pulls off a flawless (at least to these ears) American accent as the snow bound U.S. Marshall and even though they seem to have mellowed (and indeed sexed up) her character in the film compared to her Graphic Novel counterpart she still manages to essay a believably tough character that the film (despite the fact she has to suffer - though we certainly don’t suffer - a gratuitous ‘bending down in her panties’ shot very early on) takes seriously.
And the film is surprisingly tough and unglamorous in how Beckinsale’s character is treated and what she goes through.

Nothing new in the plot department most certainly, but the well directed (sometimes grizzly and violent) action and suspense scenes ,as well as the superbly used location,  raise it to a higher level than it would otherwise have attained.

I watched Andrea Arnold’s sophomore feature Fish Tank last night and was not a little disappointed, though thankfully the reviews I read had prepared me not to expect a masterpiece, let alone anything as good as her debut, the outstanding Red Road. Kind of a typical kitchen-sink drama, with lots of shakey handheld camerawork, which I normally wouldn’t complain about, except when the film doesn’t engage me. I don’t see all the fuss about actress Katie Jarvis either, though she’s perfectly acceptable as a rebellious, trash-talking teen. Underage drinking, a neglectful parent, sex, cigarettes, truancy—show us something I don’t already know. I felt a bit the same way about Hella Joof’s Se min Kjole (a road movie about four addicts who flee a rehab center), but I enjoyed the photography and presentation a whole lot more. To be honest, a lot of the time while watching Arnold’s film, I didn’t even understand what was going on, particularly at crucial points in the film, because I couldn’t understand the Essex accents. And Artificial Eye is too cheap or lazy to offer optional subtitles? On top of which, why did they release the film in a letterboxed version, when all TVs made today are widescreen?  So between the lackluster transfer, the lack of subtitles, as well as any bonus material (except for the director’s award-winning short Wasp, which I already own on the Cinema 16 collection), I’d give the film maybe a 2.5/5, or slightly less. Red Road was a much stronger film, warts and all, and is available on Blu-ray in Europe.