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Reviews
Stardust (2020)
A look inside the head of 1970-1971 Bowie
What I really liked about Stardust was its honesty. It went a long way in conveying Bowie's insecurity after two failed albums, and didn't portray him as a misunderstood genius until Ziggy came along. As such, I found this movie more interesting than the rather good Velvet Goldmine and the vacuous Moonage Daydream.
And as someone who is nonbinary, I was tickled pink that the actor portraying David spends pretty much half the film wearing the more ornate of Mr. Fish's two mens' dresses that graced the cover of the original cover of The Man Who Sold the World.
One thing that is conspicuous in its absence is a portayal of David's other cheerleader (after Angela), KROQ DJ and club owner Rodney Bingenheimer. For those unfamiliar, a worthwhile film was made about Bingenheimer, 2003's The Mayor of Sunset Strip. And yes, Bowie is in, both in the film and in the outtakes, talking to Rodney in a hotel room.
Zhui ji (1971)
Early Golden Harvest goodness
Slash: Blade of Death aka Shanghai Killers aka The Chase
is an early Golden Harvest film with above average gore
and swordplay. It was released to VCD in Hong Kong in
2007, but is also available as a Region Free NTSC Special
Edition DVD. Search for the website thekungfurobberfilms
There is no such thing as a regional coded VCD. Back in
the late 90's and early 00's, their main appeal for martial
arts fans was that VCDs have no region encoding whatsoever
and do not even require DVD playback software; any computer
with a CD-ROM could play them. The format was admittedly
short-lived in the USA, but in Asia, including China, Hong
Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Turkey, among
others, they were huge, and are still released for commercial
sale to this very day.
In the early 00's not many Americans had multi-region DVD
players, so VCDs were very appealing. I have over 400 of
them myself, and yes, I can play them on my Windows 10 Dell
PC and on my Toshiba region-free Blu-ray player, as well.
There's an excellent web page about the VCD format. Look for
a site called The Gweilo's Guide to Hong Kong Chinese Movies,
and in the What Do You Want section in the right column, click
on VCD. Otherwise, in the Archive section a little further
down, select October. It's the fourth article.
The Long Haul (1957)
As much melodrama as noir
This is a rather wrenching melodrama for those who like such things. Although on the surface The Long Haul is a trucking film and a noir, some of the characters' interrelationships and motivations add enough heft to the tense script to make you lean forward out of your seat for more reasons than just action and suspense.
I admit to watching the film for Dors, not previously being much of a fan of Mature, but I thought his contribution to the film was every bit as solid as hers.
Dors is nowhere as hot here as she was in Tread Softly Stranger, released a year later, but she gives a solid performance.
Cypher (2002)
Really good puzzle pic
I just saw Cypher (2002) and thought it was great. It's the best paranoid conspiracy dystopian noir I've seen since the under-appreciated Equilibrium (2002). Yep, that means I liked it more than Shutter Island/Inception (both Leonardo DiCaprio, 2010).
The first movie directed by Vincenzo Natali I ever saw was Cube (1997), and I liked it so much that I even sought out and enjoyed Cube 2: Hypercube (2002; I like the DVD's alternate endings more than the film itself), and Cube Zero (2004). I saw Splice (2009), too, and liked that quite a bit, so I guess it was only a matter of time until I saw Cypher (2002).
For those who like this film, I would recommend seeing Cube (1997), of course, but also Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966), Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), The Usual Suspects (1995), Lost Highway (1997), Hellraiser: Deader (2005) [!], A Scanner, Darkly (2006), and Inception (2010). Everybody else has mentioned Total Recall (1990), The Manchurian Candidate (1962 & 2004), Dark City (1998) and The Matrix (1999).
I've got Natali's 2003 film Nothing winging it's way to my via snail mail now. Yay!
Miguel/Michelle (1998)
The Most Heartwarming and Positive Film on the Subject of Transsexualism I Have Ever Seen
This is about a Philippino boy who goes off to America and then returns to the Philippines as a woman specifically to be accepted by her parents, after which she will return to the USA. The problem is, she didn't tell her family about her sex change and they learn the hard way when she shows up as a woman rather than a man!
The film is alternately heartwarming and tearjerking. It's a pretty emotional affair, and I found myself on the edge of my seat much of the time, identifying greatly with the brave and honorable transsexual woman. I guess that's why I loved it: here is a transgender hero for the closet TG, in a movie that is fairly unsensationalized and low key. This is the most heartwarming and positive film on the subject of transsexualism I have ever seen.
This was obviously filmed by someone intimately acquainted with the situations that transsexuals face, and is very honest without being brutally so. This is a very good film for TSs to share with friends and family members.
Filmed in the Tagalog language (somewhat like Spanish). The video has very clear, computer-generated yellow subtitles with a black border around them.
I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Despite its title, this is one of the best-ever science fiction films
With a monster similar to but better than many in the 1960s OUTER LIMITS series, this is a relatively sober sci-fi outing with an atypical appeal to female viewers. Very much worth your while. This is not like the 50's output of Roger Corman, but more in keeping with films like FORBIDDEN PLANET and THIS ISLAND EARTH.
If you haven't already, go out of your way to see this.