Oskado Reviews

Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)

Unbelievable

[1/10 · 6 January 2021]

There are only two aspects to this film that I can praise. First, no matter how many tarantulas swarmed over the ground around our dying heroes, care appeared taken NOT to step on any. Hopefully, none were harmed in the making of the film. Next, there are a FEW screen shots of the Verde Valley area, allowing us a weak glimpse back into the 1970s.

Until the human death rate becomes totally absurd, we can overlook the facts that tarantulas don't "sting" and that they're amazingly slow. Oddly, none are depicted crawling across ceilings (a skill that amazes me), and their modest, seasonal reproduction rate is overlooked. The plot line was MUCH better suited for a comedy - what we needed for real success was the rest of Star Fleet and Mel Brooks!

Clue (1985)

Not Meant for Us

[1/10 · 1 November 2015]

To me, this "work" appeared as though scriptless, left to a random bunch of actors to adlib as they went - clueless. Their confused attempts at adlibbing their way into some rough sketch of a plot are soon thwarted by the incongruous arrival of a new, scriptless adlibber, (Boddy) looking as though snatched off some rugby field without the chance even for a shower or a shave. What can the struggling others do but quickly adlib his death to get the blatant misfit out of there! But then a new, would-be adlibber/random bumpkin arrives at the door. So what can erupt but more bewilderment among the adlibbers on how to extract him from their still directionless non-plot - or - (here's a big mystery) how to meld another newbie misfit into the chaos.

If stylish, plot less adlibbing through the timeline of a full-length film, through one random obstacle or uninvited intruder after another can amuse you, this is a film you shouldn't miss. We turned it off after about a half-hour. Boredom has limits.

Edge of Eternity (1959)

Of special interest to those who've lived in Kingman

[6/10 · 21 October 2015]

While flipping channels before leaving a hotel room, I caught sight of a screen view of Kingman's court house (Mohave County, AZ) and, moments later, a view of old main street (Beale Street). I hadn't time to watch the film, but as I'd lived in Kingman 25 years, I ordered the DVD out of curiosity to see what other old scenes it might offer.

The film appears, indeed, have been shot entirely in the Kingman area of 1959, and the city is far smaller than the one I moved to in 1982. The Grand Canyon location within the film is today that of Grand Canyon West, a touristic site belonging to the Hualapai Reservation. Remains of the funicular link to what was once a guano mine below, as well as an auto that crashed to the bottom, are still visible as a part of the GCW tour loop. A few scenes appear to have been shot in old Oatman (a picturesque ghost mining town) and some others north of Red Lake on the way to Lake Mead.

In regards to the film, I feel that 1.) its script lacks what might have been some obvious and logical improvements, 2.) its runtime needs extension by about 10 minutes to allow denouement of a number of subplots, and 3.) overall, the film is structured in a rather amateurish, low-budget fashion. Compared to many a Western film of the 1950s, however, this one is not so badly done and provides entertainment.

Despite the above criticism, I - like another reviewer - found myself looking into Victoria Shaw's biography, wondering if I might explore her appearance in other films. Unfortunately, they are very few.

Family Diary (1962)

A Masterwork

[10/10 · 15 March 2010]

This is a film so great that to attempt to describe it nearly forces one into poetry. The visual flow alone is like a walk through all the great art galleries of the Western world, and the camera pauses on many of those scenes to permit us to admire and study the surprising compositions and tonal pallets. The story is viewed oddly in the third person - I felt somewhat like an astronomer viewing the short-lived movement of a group of comets through the coldness of space and time - helplessly seeking meaning and comfort through love, but doomed to end meaningless and forgotten - following some brutish laws of physics whose study seems a shrewd exercise in futility.

The scope of action is exceedingly restricted - perhaps more microscopic than telescopic - in the end, it's all the same: universal and intimate, cold and loving, helpless, with an odd image of Joseph's multi-colored coat haunting the mind - yet another symbolic object long rotted into the dust as must all symbols.

This is the work of people who have a very mature, objective understanding of life and who, without romanticizing or distorting or euphemizing, have created something both true and extraordinarily beautiful.

Blue Heat: The Case of the Cover Girl Murders (1997 Video Game)

An attempt at a stylish gumshoe game

[8/10 · 27 February 2008]

Production of this game evidently began with some high expectations, but was bruised by one unforeseen after another. The casting, including Elliot Gould as a chief of police, is upbeat - meanwhile, the action scenes including dancers, etc. in the atmospheric, sleazy topless bars do not (for me) lend any valuable erotic enticement to the adventure, as these moments are in fact "plot retardation" and distractions from solving the case.

The worst disasters to strike this ambitious game production appear to be (I'm no insider or expert) 1.) sale of the production to a new producer who back-burner-ed it, and 2.) dramatic changes in computer standards during the production process.

The result has the beginnings of an honest-to-gosh, stylish detective experience, but - through evident budget cuts and changes in priorities, it was never brought to full potential - and as a result is too short and disappointingly shallow. All its potential strong points needed more development.

I played this game at a time when I was searching for other productions in the style of Under a Killing Moon, the Gabriel Knight series, Noctropolis, etc. I obtained this game through the Internet from another player - and in the same search located another game by the title of The Dame Was Loaded, which (sadly) substantially outshines this title and which I would up playing perhaps three times over the years.

There are many, many video games inferior to Blue Heat, less ambitious and with less atmosphere, but I admit I haven't played again since obtaining it perhaps six-seven years ago, in 2001.

Lost Highway (1997)

An Exploration of Dramatic Structure

[8/10 · 11 November 2007]

I missed the opening minutes of this film and it's late at night, but it held my interest through till the end and left me thinking...

To me, it seemed a collage of strongly dramatic sequences, closely matching or harmonizing in tone, dynamics and texture, so as to present an overall sense of unity and aesthetic balance of composition. It reminds me of the Arnold Schoenberg approach to music, i.e., the creation of 'music' through pure application of structurally determined music theory (as in a computer simulation) - as opposed to the slower, traditional, "analog" methods involving individual inspiration and creativity. At the same time, it reminded me of "What's Up Tiger Lily" - a work I find unwatchable, but which is also a "collage", though a collage of music, voice and script elements over a thespian backdrop which is cinematically third-rate - i.e., Allen might as well have selected his characters from an anthill. What's more, the tone, texture, pseudo-logic, dramatic impetus of the elements in WUTL all seem to me too mediocre to endure - like a bad joke that doesn't know when to end - NONE of which is the case with Lost Highway, which is visually and dramatically gripping. And of course the title, itself, is revealing and subject to multiple interpretation.

I felt I was experiencing this film on various levels, one of which was of course the beautifully filmed and tense "tenor" of the story, but at the same time, I was witnessing the great sense of humor behind it all.

A aesthetic, well-constructed work; as said - at least an 8.

Children of Men (2006)

A Stinker – Amateur, imbecilic. The Villains are the 5-Star Reviewers

[1/10 · 10 January 2007]

I've checked my voting record, and if I compare this wretch to the worst I've ever commented on (Auberge Espagnole and Capitaes d'Abril) those two stand out like cinematic giants. Actually, as I left the theater and hunted in my mind for another film as inept and devoid of dramatic sense and intelligence as this one, I could only think of Toxic Avenger, yet that film was shot with amateurs and a budget not more than 1000th of that wasted on Children of Man. And even Toxic Avenger adheres in its rough way to notions of Introduction (of some challenge, etc.), Development, Rising Action, etc., through to the Moment of Last Tension and Climax. Now imagine a film that begins with the Moment of Last Tension and carries that fever pitch through an hour and a half of senseless frenzy (like an insane contribution to the Theater of the Absurd) till it simply ends – with no true Climax, since there was never any dramatic plot development. In effect, this thing resembles a visual walkthrough for some shoot-anyone-who-moves video game.

The most sensible use of this material would thus have been to trash two-thirds and slice the remaining one-third into cut-scenes for another mindless action video game. The real challenge would be to create some vaguely coherent storyline to explain in the game booklet – something the makers of this film don't seem to have worried about. While the pathetic director and his compadres might object that Grand Theft Auto, for instance, hasn't much of a plot either, that would be somewhat misguided, in my estimation, as the player of an equally senseless video game is at least personally engaged as a protagonist, hence emotionally involved, however utterly stupid the environment or weak the plot.

Since some viewers or (I presume) paid reviewers have lionized this "film", please note the following:

1. Though the human race sees itself doomed because of the sudden infertility of its women (now that requires a simplistic mind), at no point can the script allow the word CLONE to be mentioned. We're a long way from Jurassic Park here - unable to even clone one of our own species in year 2027 or so.

2. Serious reviewers refer to the "fascist" state the protagonists are fleeing. What isn't mentioned is that our heroic dummies have transit papers and can legally exit - that is, till a group of violent illegals attacks them near the border and later their driver kills two traffic cops in cold blood. Yes, murderers on the run can understandably view policemen and straight citizens as fascists. But the reviewers? (Well, if they haven't thought of the "clone" word, who knows what's going on in their minds).

3. The film never shows us the Human Project, the land of deliverance our heroes are risking their lives to reach. Thus we have no clear vision of what they're striving for, nor understand why it exists. Shakespeare's The Tempest (et alia) need not depict the trials of London life to its spectators - they know it all too well. The play instead depicts the island - the land sheltered from all that. In this film, we're shown a world we all see clearly enough developing around us - and then superimposes onto is a non-sensical script.

4. The "fascist" soldiers engaged in a firefight with insurrectionists halt their fire to allow free passage to our heroine "Kee" and her baby - so stunned are they at the birth and so determined that nothing harm her or the child. Given that fact, what was the point to all the senseless action? And how great were the anti-fascists (I suppose) who only think of themselves and would have killed Kee at their first opportunity?

5. Some reviewers have seen "Mexico versus U.S." as some hidden motif to this junk film. I fail to see that. For instance, some of the illegals are Slavic. Apparently, Poland, Slovenia, etc., have been overwhelmed by in-migrations from the east, Turkestan, etc., causing their indigenous Slavic populations to flee their homelands. Yes, there is an implied similarity, in that unbridled inflow can result in the formation of non-integrated ghettos, and by extension, whole countries can become transformed into Bosnias. But, in this apocalyptic picture, presumably Mexico, too, is overwhelmed - though they have had tighter control over in-migration than has the US (thus slower economic growth - being just what they want)- to protect the rights of the criollos, who irrationally enough want nothing more than to leave their country but keep foreigners out. Just read Semarnat's (the Mexican Ministry of the Interior and Natural Resources) agendas and notes, posted on the Internet - for instance, documenting that the Zapotecs and Miztecs have been at war over "their" natural resources now for 500 years (per Semarnat), now using machine guns instead of spears, and are unlikely to ever change, unless they move out of the country. Obviously, neither group would be welcomed in by the millions of Mayans in the south, nor by the Masahuelas more to the north, etc., while the "Spanish" leaders of the country would love to be rid of them. In other words, Mexico already faces this demographic Beelzebub at its day-to-day domestic level.

Obviously, there is a superabundance of potential material for developing a more coherent apocalyptic view of the future - just read the newspapers.

I would score this film a minus-8, but I believe 1 is the lowest IMDb permits, sadly. And, BTW, if reviewers had simply told me in advance that this is an empty-headed action thriller, and rated it two stars out of five, I might have accepted it as a silly time-killer for a rainy day. In the end, the reviewer hype is the greatest villain - both to me and to a director who needs clearer guidance if his work's ever to improve.

La grande strada azzurra (1957)

Relentless, yet beautiful and compassionate

[9/10 · 1 October 2006]

A man's relentless drive toward self-destruction is the tenor plot in this film, but the surrounding study of human nature, and of what can be the ultimate values in life fill out the canvas. Squarcio, the hero, has through good fortune escaped detection long enough to establish a comfortable life for his family and loving wife. Other fishermen, who have reason enough to detest him, consistently show him compassion - their basic good natures prevailing. Squarcio, though, like a "Sturm und Drang" character, relentlessly pursues a path his logic - and wife and children - tell him he should abandon. He is offered other choices; he sees other charismatic characters uselessly die - yet his actions are emotionally driven.

At mid-film, the local coast guard commander chooses to retire, to quit service before having to witness the death or imprisonment of his childhood friend. I, the viewer, felt likewise - very much like abandoning the theater before the inevitable. Yet I stayed on, hoping for some early hint of a happy end to come.

But for me, the most memorable moments in this film were certain sea scenes set to challenge the most beautiful and intriguing of any painting of the old Venetian school - sepia sails, emerald seas, white and green (?) hulls, and old fortresses in the background - all looking a bit unreal, like a child's playthings, almost too perfect, too harmonic. Squarcio, of course, wasn't part of such scenes - he was off on his own, individualist but misguided path.

The First Nudie Musical (1976)

Wonderful 70s Comedy on DCD

[10/10 · 4 June 2006]

I saw this film years ago in grainy VHS version and liked it - though it seemed, thanks to the poor quality of the medium, low-budget and sketchy. The newly released version on DVD, reconstructed from the original 35mm edit brings out the full vibrancy of the original work. There is an intelligent, ironic and youthful irreverence or attitude in this film reminiscent of Star Wars Part 1, or of Blade Runner - or of the original-cast seedy-theater showing of the Rocky Horror Show. Note I can't stand the film version of RHS - about as riveting as a basket of plastic fruit. The cast here consists largely of L.A. City College students - and the results reflect their youthful, adventurous tastes, not the dudd, platitudinous, mass-marketed vacuity of the lowest common denominator flicks usually earmarking big studio or TV productions. And - the acting is perfect. The heroine became Shirley of Laverne and Shirley before filming ended, and I noted some lines echoed moments of Woody Allen - through under-acting what might have been racy content with an air of naiveté or suspended innocence.

The nudity in this film is complete (male and female) but thoroughly or comically underplayed - somewhat in the style of Mrs. Henderson Presents - though generally in music and dance style - like that of Moulin Rouge or Folies Bergeres. Note that if I go to Folies Bergeres itself (in nearby Vegas), the quasi-nude music-and-dance action occupies the foreground and can quickly become boring: the color, movement, music and design can't - in my case - sustain interest. Here, we have comedy, from slapstick to subtle or ironic, and good, creative comedy is hard to find.

Hope and Glory (1987)

Excellently Crafted, but through Rose-Colored Glasses

[9/10 · 19 April 2006]

The dynamics are splendid - a well-maintained cadence of tension, love, foolishness, childishness, historical fact, and human weakness, all deftly interwoven through a variety of characters, each with a unique subplot holding us in suspense.

As others have noted, this film soft-peddles the background of war: buildings are destroyed each night in great regularity, but few people seem to die, nor do many wardrobes seem to go lost. From my years in Normandy, I've heard stories from friends who as little boys played mischievously with live grenades, or emerged from their cellars or other places of hiding to find the meadows strewn with horribly wounded soldiers - the dying remains of teenagers and young men moaning for water or help the whole day, till finally the following morning the last of them succumbed to peritonitis and laid there as corpses. The boys I knew didn't plunder their neighbors houses, but live with such horrible memories: half-slaughtered boys dying outside the bedroom window - more wounded lying around than a family could bring water to, and eighteen hours or more before medics arrived to collect the dead.

But then maybe the more gruesome reality is better left to other films, ones not intended for family viewing. Or maybe it's better forgotten: certainly those who lived through it would like to forget. Though some boys got great fun from the hand grenades - a bigger bang than a cherry bomb, or the German kids' "Kanonenschlaeger".

As said, an excellent film.

Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005)

A Valliant attempt to Overcome a Mediocre Script

[6/10 · 10 March 2006]

The art direction is superb, but the acting style overblown as though somehow actors' charismatic hyper-performance could breath life and meaning into a hackneyed, unimaginative script. The script writers' primary skill appears rooted in maintaining a dynamic rhythm of moments of tension or high bustle followed by moments of calm, tenderness, reflection, etc. Fine, but lacking both imagination and perhaps historical material for such "dynamic" moments, the writers grasped at the most hackneyed, the most inane of subject matter. Thus we watch actors energetically deliver empty arguments, wildly over-done passions over nothing, maudlin sorrowings over the every-day or the inevitable, totally misplaced shy gigglings and posturings, etc.

Indeed. Posturing is in fact what this whole film is about. But here, we have posturing within posturing. And scriptwriters imposturing. This crew is too experienced to warrant an encouragement vote of 7 or 8 or 9. I'll concede a 6 - all for the cinematography. Really, they deserve a D, for discouragement.

Kamikaze Girls (2004)

Shimotsuma Fairy Tale - A coming of age tale

[9/10 · 22 January 2006]

This a well-done girls' coming-of-age tale, like a Japanese 21st-century Alice in Wonderland - one Lewis Carroll would probably have liked. And I presume whoever gave the Kamikaze Girls title to the American edition would have titled the Alice work Kamikaze Alice. The underlying themes are independent thinking, the value of friendship, and the need to pursue one's creative impulses while critically evaluating surrounding people and opportunities.

Most the adult figures in the film are - in one way or another - failures. Though seen in an exaggerated, humorous, or empathetic light, they serve as guideposts to the two girls who come to realize that salvation (or "sallvation" as Ichigo misspells it for emphasis) lies not in following the crowd, not in seeking leaders' approval, but in following one's own dreams - as much as they can be realized in this limited, 3-dimensional, mortal world.

Early in the film, I feared it was headed to be too sweet, especially with the main characters being Momoko (Peaches) and Ichigo (Strawberries). But this sweetness is quickly counterbalanced with the challenges and adventures they face.

This is a fun and very unique film, good for people of all ages. In ways, it's set in a society that seems closer to the U.S. of the 1950's - around the "beat" and the James Dean eras, when youth could be wild without police being called, and yet neighborhoods could leave front doors unlocked without fear and kids could even hitch-hike - an age of greater homogeneity when America had some cultural unity and - with exception of its black-white scar - was not afraid of itself.

I obtained this film, by the way, in VCD format (not the best, but adequate), I believe, from HKFlix. I couldn't find it anywhere in DVD format.

Sabu (2002 TV Movie)

Superb Historical Drama

[9/10 · 20 April 2005]

I find myself comparing this to the French miniseries, "Compte de Monte Cristo", and to "Manon des Sources - Jean de la Florette". Sabu, too was apparently produced for TV, and I admire the audience and director/producer/art director that permitted such a work to come to light. This is not a work produced for the lowest common denominator.

The photography - the palette - the attention to small historical details, to nature, to emotions is fine.

But I think of structure - ideas like exposition, rising action, peripetie, moment of final tension, denouement - and of Compte and Manon - and the French works seem more selective in their focus, as though examining a small group (the key parties to the action) under a microscope. Each fully. The good and the bad have their reasons, their views of life. Rising moments of tension are interspersed or silhouetted against pastoral moments or even comic or rustic relief.

Here, in Sabu, I sometimes felt the scenery stole the show - i.e., that the action or development stalled. I sometimes felt the focus was confused - that more attention should have been given to Osue, Sabu, Onobu - and certainly more to Roku and to the old fellow prisoner who is so supportive.

But I don't suggest Sabu fails to expose and delicately develop a host of characters - it does, but leaves us wanting more. And I sense a certain ideal "ratio" between the length of the film and the height and depth of its emotional swings has been violated. In Sabu, I find the rise and development of such moments too lengthy, or too understated to support the film's overall length in full dramatic fashion.

Still, there are wonderfully moving and touching moments, people we wish we could know better, even a growing understanding of a society and a time in history. Characters who appear cruel become sensitive and supportive, characters who appear innocent have their failings, and there's nature and fate and a possibility of achieving true happiness through resignation. Its world may be more accommodating than that of Manon.

I highly recommend this film. Despite weaknesses it's thought provoking. It's beautiful. It's humanist. I'll rate it a 9.

Stereo Future (2001)

A refreshing departure from mainstream

[10/10 · 9 April 2005]

While a time reduction of 15 minutes or so might have benefited this film, I greatly appreciated the overall naturalist flow, the diversity of characters - an arty but near real-life experience - with fine polish and beautiful cinematography. It's a bit like Renoir's "Une Partie de Campagne", but enlarged to a greater layering of subjects, characters and love-relationships ("ren-ai monogatari").

Actor Masatoshi Nagase has had the sublime fortune to lead in some creative, delightful, fun films. Here again, as in the Maiku Hama trilogy, he suffers some all-too-human hard moments - arguably in a Chaplinesque spirit - but like in Modern Times, in this one he ends up with a girl (though I won't tell you which one), though no richer financially. I just wish more like this were available in the U.S.

One Missed Call (2003)

Not nearly as bad as expected...

[6 April 2005]

I listened to this film purely to study its dialogue as an exercise in my Japanese language studies (a hobby). I was somewhat edgy, expecting my dictionary to be scared out of my hands at any moment. Instead, I encountered nothing very startling, but found that the film developed a good sense of student ambiance, and the horror elements were carefully stylistic - use of shadows, characters unseen by our heroine lurking in backgrounds, subtle bridging to more sinister music to suggest dangers ahead.

Then, still early on in the film, I awoke to comic elements - the serial use of gimmickry from other horror flicks. I haven't seen many, but the references to "The Birds" and (rather obliquely) to "Psycho" were obvious, as was the straining facial indentation on a door a la Ghostbusters - and parodies aside, the classroom scene with the heroine fiddling with her cellphone while the teacher lectures is comic enough. In fact, the exaggerated omnipresence of the cellphones, wherever our characters turn, makes them seem to flock around as comically as though they were Hitchcock's birds.

I'll admit I can't think of "The Birds" without imagining myself with a baseball bat whacking the poor attackers as they swoop in - something of course the characters themselves couldn't be permitted to do. And in this flick, the all too obvious mystery for the viewer is "how the director and script writer can possibly explain to us how cellphones can attack and kill..." It's a great joke!

Well, given the level of absurdity, the denouement was bound to be messy. Personally, as I watched and replayed lines and looked up words and phrases, I gradually expected an "Alice"-like ending - in the style of American McGee's Alice, the fantastic PC game - i.e., our girl would wake up from her nightmares, freed from inner anguishes, and we'd learn no one but her inner demons had actually died.

Well, that's not quite the ending, but for those who're interested in this genre, I'll not spoil it. All in all, it wasn't bad - pretty well made - and as said, I found myself interested in some of the characters.

Wana (1996)

A Wildly Stylistic and Exciting Film

[9/10 · 30 March 2005]

The very first minutes of this film seemed to pour on style like syrup on a stack of super-realistic Phillip Marlowe-era pancakes, and I was ready for a thrill. We start off back in the old Yokohama movie house by the wacky ticket-taker's booth and her dwarfish sidekick and then move upstairs to Maiku Hama's (Mike Hammer's) projection-booth private eye's office. And the opening's a dark, chilling one - an immediate confrontation with an eerie, masked character.

Maiku has a new girl friend in this sequel - a mute - with whom he frequently converses over the phone - she tapping responses on the mouthpiece in some private code they've agreed on, while he simply speaks, as she is not deaf. Language played a role in the first film of the Maiku Hama trilogy (The Most Terrible Time in My Life) - there it was use of "Kanji" characters to communicate across the Chinese-Japanese language gulf. Here. the tap-code saves Maiku's life at the end, in a fight to the death.

I wished throughout I might have seen it in a wide-screen theater, in place of my computer screen. It's viewed a bit in comic-book style - albeit a super-stylish one. And somewhat as with James Bond flicks, we're to sit back and enjoy - not delve too deep into logic of the plot or the actions. As in The Most Terrible Time, characters sometimes show incredible hesitation at the most urgent moments - something I find frankly disruptive.

The nemesis duo from the Yokohama police department is again on Maiku's tail, but this time, the younger one sides with Maiku - even becomes so fed up with with his superior's cynicism he decides to quit the force and become a detective himself.

But despite all the style and well-crafted cinematography, the film both thrilled me and let me down. However good so much of it was, Hayashi is very sparing in his character development. It could have been so much more fun with more involvement from the colorful characters. And why is it that the three pretty victims at the beginning of the flick all look so strikingly different, while throughout the remainder of the film villainess and heroine are virtually indistinguishable in appearance? The film has a strong start - seems to promise so much - but, somewhere near mid-point (after the villain plants Maiku's fingerprints at the scene of a killing), to my taste, the script becomes too problematic - much interesting detail dies unused - the pace falters and I became impatient. Hayashi compensates us with imaginative humor and a funny cinema-verite trick at the end - even a sequence with Maiku cutting a suave figure in blond wig and drag - but the result is less than perfect. I gave it less than a 10... I wrangled between 8 and 9. But the films I evaluated it against were memorable - Maltese Falcon/Curse of the Jade Scorpion stuff - not the run of the mill, soon-forgotten stuff we see advertised around us all the time.

I feel guilty criticizing as I have, since I had a great time watching it! By the way, I was only able to obtain this DVD by way of Amazon Japan.

Freeze Me (2000)

Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest...

[1/10 · 1 March 2005]

The main character in this thing is so dumb, and others so simplistically motivated, that the whole plot would appear to play out in some neglected village for the mentally incompetent. What girl, threatened with rape would flee a morning rush-hour sidewalk to race back to her apartment elevator through one doorway after another with a rapist on her heels? What terrified girl would not mention a word of her distress to another workaday girl leaving the apartment just as she passes? What girl would not at least scream for help? Then, after raping her - once he's awoken from a long gratifying sleep, while the victim has sat totally free, but anxiety-stricken on the bed - the villain threatens to shame her if she doesn't cooperate - by distributing some grainy pictures he's printed off a bubblejet. And if the threat alone wasn't stupid enough (i.e., distributing proof of his own guilt), he indeed wanders into the apartment hallway stark naked and starts stuffing the prints in the hallway mail boxes. The girl, terrified of embarrassment or loss of face, does not simply lock her door behind the idiot and call for the men in white coats to come pick him up, or even the police (heaven forbid), but is so shamed she leads him back in for more.

Now if the above isn't mind-twisting enough, imagine the girl heading off to work the next day and taking extreme care that no one suspect that a rapist has taken over her apartment and enslaved her.

In fact, the actress should feel an embarrassment almost as extreme as the character, and I can't but wonder if the men in white coats haven't reclaimed the director.

Enough. There's no plot to spoil. And the action - if we can jokingly call it that - is so slow moving it elevates the stupidity of this flick to a monumental stature, squelching any potential for slapstick - it's about as fast-moving as Claire's Knee or Ma Nuit Chez Maude. The girl can't even kill intelligently - no knife, no poison, though she's cooking for him - she kills her first man with a blow on the head from one-quart plastic water bottle! I recommend - if you really MUST see this flick - that it be viewed fast forward at at least 30X. Don't worry, you'll still find it yawningly slow. But about mid-way into it, you may come to suspect, as I did in a kind of weak "ah-hah experience", that this is apparently a simplistic sex flick and we men are supposed to be excited at watching an imbecilic main character get raped. Indeed, as the "action" progresses from dumb to dumber, the viewer is rewarded with more and more nude shower scenes. It might have been immensely better if the director and scene writer had stripped and gotten in with her and begun howling with laughter - something a la Mel Brooks, with song and dance. But no, this dud "baka na" crew takes itself seriously. What sheer stupidity!

Japan can and does produce good flicks - at least I still try to keep the faith... What a shame the good ones are unavailable in Zone 1 or 2, i.e., sold only in Zone 3 DVDs out of Japan, with $20 shipping costs and no subtitles. Who knows... maybe this Freeze Me flick is a for-export-only product and the director thinks the whole non-Japanese world is peopled with idiots. If so, I won't comment in regard to his judgment.

This deserves about a "zero", or a minus-something, if that would stop the dummies who made this, though they probably aren't capable of any other employment.

Anrakkî monkî (1998)

Man, the Unlucky Monkey, runs a dramatic gauntlet

[17 February 2005]

I'm far from an expert on Japanese films, so my ideas here are probably sophomoric, but here's my view. The film interweaves two main story lines, each fate-driven to collide with a host of peripheral dramas or mini-universes: an environmentalist meeting, a bum in an alleyway, a cocktail waitress on her way home, a professional hit-man hallucinating in a park, a family on its way to cemetery, etc. And each intersection of the main story lines with themselves, or with the peripheral story lines correlates to some specific dramatic style or phase: tragedy, melodrama, Chaplin-esque slapstick, crime thriller, philosophic, and, in the end, Twilight Zonish (or "Return of the Mummy"-ish). Afterall, the "unlucky monkey" is all humanity.

Each flip from one style or phase to the next is transitioned - unfortunately so, to my taste - not by a fade or short black-screen, but by a very excessive stop- or slow-motion study of some ultimate moment. These transitions so wore on my patience that I pressed fast-forward to escape. But even in fast-forward, I found them annoyingly long and static.

In imposing those transitions on us poor viewers, as though infatuated with what he thought some original and arty technique, the director was frankly destructively self-indulgent and probably deaf to whatever free-minded advisers he had during editing. I can't imagine another monkey on this planet with patience enough to sit through them - unless intended as mini-intermissions for making a few phone calls, mixing some lemonade and making some popcorn before returning.

With very little editing, this could have been a really good flick. Acting, scenery and artistic direction are good, and the environmentalist meeting sequence is among the most hilarious I've ever seen.

Golden Chicken 2 (2003)

Definitely worth watching, but I regret not having seen #1

[25 January 2005]

I bought this DVD from HKFlix on the basis of a promising blurb and with near zero experience with HK or Chinese films. Minutes into the film, I was facing that old "if lions could speak English, we wouldn't understand them" phenomenon. Obviously, if a lion produced a film parodying his pride's identity crises, it too might be full of visually exciting gesture and roaring and absurd humor, but it'd be tough to grasp any elements of keen significance hidden in the lion slapstick and puns and ironic inside jokes.

Still, in forcing the uninitiated viewer to think fast - to figure out what heck's behind the near comic-book style parody - this film is in a sense strongly interactive. It's also quite exhilaratingly unique, a bit in the mold of The Tin Drum (Blechtrommel) - and with an oblique touch of the slacker view on life - but from a different age and place.

I'm eager to get my hands on Golden Chicken #1. It's encouraging to find films with such youthful voice, such daring to depart from the banal - with none of the brainless violence I associate with HK flicks - and with such thought-provoking presentation.

By the way, I viewed this film in Mandarin - I had to choose between three Chinese options - and that was a mistake. The dubbing wasn't great. But of course I didn't understand word of it, anyway.

I know it's futile to say this, but I have a young, but growing stack of Zone 3 (mostly Japanese) films by one old computer, a taller stack of Zone 2's by another, and I sometimes have difficulty finding something to view a Zone 1 with...

One thing, at least - I can't imagine Richard Gere or Julia Roberts in a remake of Golden Chicken - though I mustn't put anything past our Hollywood turkeys.

Save the Last Dance (2001)

A fine film, though mislabeled

[10/10 · 4 September 2004]

I personally liked this film and found the script intelligent. However, it is NOT a "dance" film. The two lead characters share several interests, the absolute least of which is dance - the foremost of which is survival, or coping to the environment. To me, it brought back memories of coping in the South Bronx, the south sixties in Chicago and in a warehouse district of Port of Spain - all places where I had wonderful experiences with unforgettable people but never without a degree of tension or apprehension.

On the other hand, I lived years in Brooklyn and saw absolutely zero within Saturday Night Fever that connected to my reality. I've never been able to stand Westside Story, for the glib way in which it eclipses hugely complex social issues behind a song-and-dance Romeo and Juliet story - and the way in which "the enemy" is wildly oversimplified, reduced to two, coherent gangs - when in fact muggers and killers appear anywhere - on the sidewalk ahead of you or in the next doorway or alley. In this film, I shared a sense of relief each time our lead characters arrived home alive. Yet the subject is not violence, nor shock - it's despite all I've said, an upbeat and humanistic film with a happy ending.

The "Save the Last Dance" title doubtless lured many who like the Dirty Dancing-SNF genre into watching, and I can understand their disappointment. This film is a vignette of life in a largely black neighborhood and of people who have both friendly and dangerous sides to them. There is a minimum of violence, virtually no offensive language, some great role models, no "sex" and is viewable by practically all ages.

Terror Firmer (1999)

American cinema through a warped mirror

[3 June 2004]

I won't be long-winded. This film is rather a hybrid between Jodorowski's El Topo, Downey's Greaser's Palace and the stage version of Rocky Horror Show - but with a heavy, heavy injection of Monty Python - all under the frantic guidance of a blind director - a Mel Brooks look-alike. The film parodies American cinema - virtually all of which can be classified as either "B" grade or "kitch", and which so stiltifies itself that it undoes the very basis on which it might have been intelligently entertaining; e.g., Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Gone with the Wind, etc., - all totally lacking in perspective on the real senseless essence of life, its laughable absurdity, false promise and futility - could at least have striven to provide laughs. I like irony and parody. For that matter, I for instance have never watched an Oscar ceremony, but if I had assurance that the audience and American film folk were replaced with penguins, I might tune in. The same could be a constructive approach to remedying much in our News world and even government - they're all a part of public theater, too.

Oh, and since I mentioned Downey, I'll put in a plug for Hugo Pool. A humanistic work - much calmer than the subject film, of course - but touching, down-to-earth, and unpretentious.

We're Only Human (1935)

Great Photography, Superb Jane Wyatt, Annoying Script

[9 April 2004]

The actors and photography in this film are capable of so much, but we watch helplessly as Talent and Charm go squandered on a mix of out-dated Dick Tracy high-tech, underdeveloped but beautifully filmed romance, and (worst of all) an annoyingly sophomoric, Freudian-like sub-plot leading to an end-scene transformation of the grating, macho lead character (Preston Foster) into a normal human being. With the style of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn at the end of Topper, Preston and Wyatt then ride off into the horizon in an open convertible, but this time leaving a wasteland of a script behind them.

The 1935 atmosphere of this film seems true enough, with post-prohibition gangland warfare, immigrant tenements, Tammany Hall, etc. corruption, but again, this film is light-weight, not penetrating into the higher reaches of that criminal organization - higher reaches with white collars - understudies of whom we have plenty today, in and around government.

Lest this "comment" appear too condemning, I'll admit to having checked to see if I could purchase a DVD copy - not with any eagerness to watch the whole film again, but only to be able to revisit certain scenes, above all, that wonderfully young Jane Wyatt and the styles and city streets of the time - streets named "nostalgia", though this film predates me by ten years.

Ministry of Fear (1944)

Almost a superb flick

[17 March 2004]

If you like Hitchcock's "39 Steps" or "The Man Who Knew Too Much", you're likely to enjoy this one, too. It's weakness, in comparison to "39 Steps" lies in a frustratingly shallow treatment of the characters. Development of the relationship between the protagonist Neale and the very photogenic Fraeulein Hilfe is disappointingly sketchy - and their unwavering trust in each other - and love - essentially instantaneous, not gradually won through tension, doubt and adversity. And our doubts concerning Neale's time in prison for murder are defused all too quickly, assuring us he's no "Stagefright" personality. I can't help thinking Lang attempted to emulate "39 Steps". The result's a fun film, with wonderful close-ups of a very young Millan and his girl, but of "thinner fabric". As in "39" or "North by Northwest", the plot doesn't resist much scrutiny - the bad guys' judgment pretty lame. The fun lies in character eccentricities, great photography, the creation of an artificial universe, etc. Personally, I find "Man Who Knew Too Much" too long, impossible to sit through a second time, excessive in several ways - overacted, over-dramatized; this film, like "39" or "North by Northwest", I have no problem watching again and again.

Once Around (1991)

An utterly superb film

[10/10 · 16 February 2004]

An extremely well-crafted script developing a wide range of individual psychologies within an extended family, together with good casting and acting make this an exceptional film. None of the characters is, to my taste, naturally attractive or charismatic, but as personalities striving to maintain stability in their lives, they are fascinating and fuel a continual dramatic tension.

Dreyfuss plays the most enigmatic character, the one "tearing apart" the family, and so has the central role, but his past remains a mystery. When we first encounter him he is alone, a man in his sixties perhaps, staring out over the sea, with behind him a divorce only recently finalized. He delivers a materialistic and self-gratifying speech, with horrifically inappropriate humor, to a flock of aspiring condominium salespeople and proceeds to "fall in love" and quickly marry the immature "baby" member of the film's subject family. But behind his frequently obnoxious salesman's rhetoric and showy possessions, just who is he, and what are his motives? Why did his prior marriage fail? What scars does he bear from the 40s, when he was born in Lithuania and somehow escaped with at least his mother for the States? While looking out over the sea was he contemplating suicide? Was suicide in his mind when he met the simpleton girl on a rooftop with no guard rail and opted to grab on to her for help? His background is eclipsed behind the family's bourgeois Italian-American heritage, as though only Italian ethos can matter, or can be stylishly accepted - so he's given little opportunity to explain. Otherwise, the emptiness and tactlessness of his impromptu speeches seem to underscore an ingrained sense of the absurd and perhaps of despair.

Dreyfuss' character has large gaps, gaping scars - like the ragged edges of a piece of a puzzle, a piece that fits perfectly into the poorly developed, ragged edges of the family's youngest and otherwise socially inept and professionally helpless daughter. Together they form a whole - not necessarily people we'd like to know or befriend, but - but they drive the film to a dramatic climax.

As said, this film develops the characters of a extended family - not just the two above. This is a film well worth seeing and thinking about - and it seemed to me, just off and on (and in some close-ups) a little Swedish in its sensitivity.

Raffles Hotel (1989)

In Search of a Plot...

[1 February 2004]

I've watched this film twice and yet still find this an all-too-short mystic epic of mood, music, atmosphere, and three talented actors all wandering about in search of some plot - which in the end they fail to find. I will also note that I was less than enthralled at reading the author's Almost Transparent Blue - in fact, I haven't finished it - a book which (to my clumsy eye) appears such a shallow knock-off of William Burroughs' Naked Lunch or Junkie or - even more lamentably - of Cortazar's incomparably greater work, Hopscotch (Rayuela), as to be pathetic. Yet I'm told the book sold well...

So back to the film. Moeko, who "used to be an actress", has returned, so weighed-down with nostalgia she can hardly walk, to Singapore. A tour guide meets her at the airport and serves her through the film as her guide in search of remnants of her past. We the viewers also search, trying to piece together, through her occasional visions - or hallucinations - or odd out-of-place comments (e.g.,"Have you ever seen a baby smile?") the cause of her apparent psychological stress or to guess at potential denouements. But the film keeps us at a distance. We know she wants to revisit the jungle, that no Japanese was buried at a ground she visits, that someone important to her past once worked at restoring a church, etc., but no one ever asks her - in earshot of the viewer - the simple question, "Why have you come here?".

To openly expose such information, apparently, would have been too easy, too unarty - but the viewer can't but wonder if the Director/Author himself had decided after even the first two-thirds of the film just how to piece together coherency. He was apparently concentrating on outdoing Fellini's 8-1/2, but somewhere failed to comprehend or fully appreciate the fact that Fellini's lead character coherently develops (in somewhat expressionist style) universal problems we all to some degree face. Then, I presume, some accountant's budgetary report arrived - or he was offered a better job - or he awoke to what he'd actually wrought - and decided to bring a quick end to it. Indeed, the end does - at least to my taste - arrive far too soon, with a quasi Twilight Zone conclusion, without ever allowing from Moeko's zombiesque torment a coherent evolution of details that might have formed a message of personal value to the viewer.

This film - in my view - exposes a danger of author-directorship, i.e., a lack of peer critique. An Antonioni or Fellini - or many a lesser director - would have forced the needed balance of coherency and universal message from the author.