Oldboy.

Review #2504: Oldboy.

Cast: 

Choi Min-sik (Oh Dae-su; Oh Tae-kyung as young Dae-su), Yoo Ji-tae (Lee Woo-jin; Yoo Yeon-seok as young Woo-jin), Kang Hye-jung (Mi-do), Ji Dae-han (No Joo-hwan; Woo Il-han as young Joo-hwan), Kim Byeong-ok (Mr. Han), Yoon Jin-seo (Lee Soo-ah), Oh Dal-su (Mr. Park Cheol-woong), and Oh Kwang-rok (Suicidal man) Directed by Park Chan-wook.

Review: 

"Many people tend to differentiate starkly between commercially successful or nonsuccessful movies, but the simple truth is merely that people have differing tastes about what kind of movies they like or don't. The audience seems hazy to me, shrouded in a veil through which I can't see. They are not real, not concrete. So I chose one person to be my sole audience, representing all the audiences out there. That person is my wife. From the scriptwriting and the editing process all the way to deciding on the music, I discuss everything with her thoroughly in detail. She is a normal housewife with an incredible eye who constantly offers me much advice and help."

One of the reasons for New Directors Month is to make up for lost time and go with people that clearly will get further featuring over time. Born to an architect and a poet in Seoul, Park Chan-wook actually planned to be an art critic. His major was philosophy at Sogang University but couldn't quite settle in to his major (the university did not have many arts classes) and found interest in a photography club. He then saw a screening of Vertigo (1958) and apparently was compelled to "at least try to become a movie director"*. Park worked as a film critic (when he had to make money in college, he did stories based on movies prior to being shown in Korea with subtitles) while earning film experience as an assistant director on Kkamdong (1988). He made his attempt to be a filmmaker with The Moon Is... the Sun's Dream (1992) and Trio (1997) ...and neither found an audience, to the point where Park essentially disowned them. At any rate, he kept going, directing the short film Judgement (1999) that basically made him realized that actors "were not puppets". He got his breakthrough with the mystery thriller Joint Security Area (2000), which for a brief time was the highest ever grossing movie in South Korea. Unintentionally, Park's next film became the first of what has been labeled as "The Vengeance Trilogy" with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), with Oldboy (2003) and Lady Vengeance (2005) soon following. According to Park, the theme of vengeance recurred in certain movies of his because of how people have had to deal with the rage and grudges within themselves (with smaller and smaller outlets to get it out) that basically leads to "stories of people who place the blame for their actions on others because they refuse to take on the blame themselves", where morality and guilty consciences are what matters as the subject (he also has stated once that his "through-line of violence" comes with the turbulence he had witnessed as a college youth in the 1980s). In addition to the occasional work for television (such as The Sympathizer in 2024*), Park has continued to make a wide variety of films such as I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (2006), Thirst (2009), The Handmaiden (2016) and his most recent work, No Other Choice (2025).

The source material for the film was the Japanese manga Old Boy, which was written by Garon Tsuchiya and illustrated by Nobuaki Minegishi that was serialized from 1996 to 1998. Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Jun-hyung, and Park Chan-wook adapted the script for the film you see here. An unauthorized Indian adaptation called Zinda came out in 2006 before Oldboy was subsequently remade for American audiences with Spike Lee in 2013. What you get here is a movie all about making you feel every nook and cranny of the complexities that arise in what it really means to try and seek revenge and the all-encompassing perils that come with guilt. It is an action thriller of course, with a particularly standout single-shot corridor fight scene, but there is something much more involving in what the movie wants to make you feel in the cycles of violence that come every now and then that isn't so much exploitative as is evocative. The performances are particularly worthwhile to experience this disturbing journey of all-consuming violence, with Choi (who did most of his own stunts) managing to take it all in a stride that fits the film perfectly with where it has to go for a movie that really just involves two people confronting a mirror of each other rather than just good vs. evil. Yoo makes that other side of all-consuming revenge just as unnerving with a chilling performance that really does get under one's skin for what you see of him (I think back to the scene where he is just standing in the room with a mask, honestly). Caught in the middle of it is Kang, who handles it all with such hurried grace in this wavering story of someone trying to understand what they cannot possibly understand. You understand the feeling of being in captivity like a chained beast and wonder if they ever actually got out of the cage. Rage and vengeance can be all-consuming if one allows it to permeate through their wellbeing, and it helps that the film basically spreads its violence out in ways that make the punishments all the more unnerving (whether that involves pulling teeth, eating a live octopus, or, well, with its climax). It is a fairly brisk film that manages to be pretty unnerving with its slow burn about what really matters in the pursuit of "the truth" that you really have to not spoil for yourself. There are no triumphs or easy answers at the end of the film, which actually is a pretty big relief when you get down to it. It's a pretty damn good movie, particularly if you go into it with as little to know as possible to really let it wash over you.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

*Among influences Park listed in 2004 were: "Sophocles, Shakespeare, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Zola, Stendhal, Austin, Philip K. Dick, Zelazny and Vonnegut." Fun fact: one influence on Viet Thanh Nguyen when writing The Sympathizer was in fact Park's Oldboy (2003).

Another end to the New Directors Month tradition. Among the finalists for this year include the following: Pigs and Battleships [Shōhei Imamura] · The Man Who Fell To Earth [Nicolas Roeg]  · Wakefield [Robin Swicord] · Bad Company [Robert Benton] · Jacob the Liar [Frank Beyer] · Hundreds of Beavers [Mike Cheslik]

As always, see you next time.

Chan is Missing.

Review #2503: Chan is Missing.

Cast: 

Wood Moy (Jo), Marc Hayashi (Steve), Laureen Chew (Amy), Peter Wang (Henry), Presco Tabios (Presco), Frankie Alarcon (Frankie), Judi Nihei (Lawer), Ellen Yeung (Mrs. Chan), and George Woo (George) Directed by Wayne Wang.

Review: 

"I was always trying to do something that was different. I want to go back and do something where I can unlearn everything that I learned. I always tell film students that everything you learn might be helpful, but, in the end, you want to unlearn all of that and just trust your instincts and make the film you wanna make."

Well, I suppose it helps to understand the perspective that comes with a director's upbringing for certain movies. Wayne Wang was born and raised in Hong Kong and his parents (who had escaped from China after the war) aimed for him to go to America to study and prepare for medical school (the unrest in Hong Kong in 1967 did not help matters) by going to Foothill College. While he lived with a Quaker family, they actually had a radical interest in the burgeoning counterculture that left an impression on him. Combined with having a class involving art history, Wang found himself wanting to become involved in the arts which led to him studying at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He thought about majoring in painting but soon changed his major to film because UC Berkley's Pacific Film Archive came into focus to help him get more absorbed into film. After graduate school, he went back to Hong Kong and worked a while at a station that didn't exactly gel with his new-found ideas about film. At any rate, he went back to the Bay Area and became involved in the local Asian filmmaking community while also teaching English at a Chinese language center. In 1975, he worked with Rick Schmidt on a low budget drama called A Man, a Woman, and a Killer that he co-wrote and co-directed that came and went to little fanfare. Chan is Missing (1982) ended up being his breakthrough film onto a career of over four decades. Over the prevailing years, Wang has made a variety of films in and out of the system ranging from Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985), The Joy Luck Club (1993), The Center of the World (2001), Maid in Manhattan (2002) and his most recent film, Coming Home Again (2019).

With this film, Wang wrote the script alongside Issac Cronin and Terrel Seltzer (who essentially aided in the narration, they did not write dialogue) that came from the experiences that Wang had involving the center alongside his experiences seeing his elder brother try to cope with living with the high-strung nature of America*. Featuring a mix of professional actors and community folks, the film was shot all around Chinatown over the course of ten weekends (a list of locations utilized for the film can be seen in this link). The result was a festival hit that received considerable distribution that was considered noteworthy given its Chinese American director.  In fairness, the ambiguity and playing with the genres of the mystery noir with its own humor about where it lies with in Chinatown is the point. Wang shot the film with an intention of "evolution of the Chinese written word in mind", which basically meant the movie became what it was after plenty of time in the editing room (apparently Wang spent two years editing). You've got a structure that is then expanded upon with some improv (as aided by the Asian American Theater Company) and a mix of English, Mandarin, and Cantonese to go with songs that were chosen for what one would hear going down Chinatown such as "Grant Avenue" or “Sabor a Mí”. It is a light affair at 76 minutes that borders on a travelogue (hey at least it isn't the scenic route) you might see on television with where it comes and goes with a mostly committed Moy and Hayashi along the way that sees plenty of varying leads about a mystery that isn't really a mystery at all. The film, possibly like the Asian American experience, isn't exactly something you can peg down as one thing, which I suppose is more effective and curious for some. As a whole, Chan is Missing is a decent movie, managing to have a playful energy that can be worth your interest if you understand what you're getting into with the nature of perceptions in culture that can crisscross for whatever type of effect is possible. You just might encounter something you didn't expect with this movie, for better or worse.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Tragically, his brother suffered from schizophrenia.

*Apparently, the movie is available on YouTube: A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER (77 min., ©1975). Directed by Wayne Wang and Rick Schmidt.

Violent Cop (1989).

Review #2502: Violent Cop.

Cast: 

Takeshi Kitano (Azuma), Maiko Kawakami (Akari), Makoto Ashikawa (Kikuchi), Shirō Sano (Yoshinari), Sei Hiraizumi (Iwaki), Mikiko Otonashi (Iwaki's wife), Hakuryu (Kiyohiro), Ittoku Kishibe (Nito), Ken Yoshizawa (Shinkai), Nobuyuki Katsube (Deputy Police Chief Higuchi), and Akira Hamada (Chief Detective Araki) Directed by Takeshi Kitano.

Review: 

"My advice is: trust nobody. Don't listen to what anybody has to say, just stick to your guns and trust your instincts. If you start to listen to people and put their ideas in your first movie, then you'll have to compromise more on your second, and it will just get worse and worse from there. You can always listen to advice on your third or fourth film, but on your first, stick to your guns. Just be prepared to be labeled a "box office unfriendly" director, like I used to be, if you do this."

Tell me if this sounds familiar: actor-turned-filmmaker. Okay, that's a simplification, but how else does one start talking about Takeshi Kitano? Born in Adachi, Tokyo, Kitano actually started his studies at Meiji University for engineering before he dropped out, finding his first path as a comedian. He became a theater MC and later formed a comedy duo as "Beat Takeshi" with Niro "Beat" Kaneko (hence the duo name of Two Beat). Eventually, he struck out on his own to do appearances on television (such as the game show Takeshi's Castle and, I'm not kidding, designing a video game) and then tried to branch out into film with Nagisa Ōshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983). When he went to a screening and heard people burst out laughing, he found himself devastated but also determined to continue to play serious characters in film and TV. In a filmmaking career of over three decades, Violent Cop, his debut film as a director, is the only film he did not have a writing credit for and one of just two where he did not serve as editor, which has seen films such as the comedy Getting Any? (1995), the crime drama Hana-bi (1997), the one-time American production with Brother (2000), the lyrical drama Dolls (2002), the action film Zatōichi (2003), and his most recent film, Broken Rage (2024) to go along with his continued work in television (he has been quoted as stating that doing shows helped in his filmmaking in terms of the pursuit of knowledge).

Apparently, the original plans were to make a movie adaptation of a non-fiction novel (about insurance fraud) called Travelers of the Southern Cross with Kinji Fukasaku* as director and Kitano as one of the leading roles. Apparently, an incident involving Kitano storming a scandal magazine spurred curiosity to have Kitano not just be in the film but play a detective once delays from the fallout of, well, stumbling onto a building with a "gang" because a gossip magazine wrote about them. Fukasaku's disagreements with the producer over the scheduling and tone led to the idea of Kitano doing both direction and starring, complete with freedom to do what he could, complete with doing re-writes on the original script (as done by Hisashi Nozawa, who later took his original script and turned it into a novel). Kitano has been quoted saying that he wanted to show violence as the horrifying thing that it is rather than say, as one to be glamorized or depicted as inevitable. Basically, you get a movie from someone who is making their first steps of a worldview involving bleak surroundings, long takes that leave the viewer in a sort of a stasis for what they are seeing and a generally resigned nature to what will end up on screen in terms of violence that is as swift as it is startling. It might not exactly be a great movie, but it does manage to have enough to make the 103 minutes manage to work in the stone-faced chaos that ensues from people that essentially has no qualms about having no heroes. The violence that comes out from Kitano paired with the middling amount of resistance from the authority around him (consider how he mostly writes apology notes) is there because that's just how the wind blows in "life going on". It isnt exactly the Japanese Dirty Harry, you know. One minute you could be at the theater with a friend and the next minute, a mishap leaves someone splattered onto the floor. You get a chase scene with a bit of jazz poured in to go along with plenty of running for a movie that really could only end one way in the circle of violence. People live, people die, and the cop machine (vice or otherwise) moves on. As a whole, Violent Cop is a shaky but curiously enjoyable experience that is worth seeing further with Kitano as a filmmaker in looking upon violence and the people that inhabit that world. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*You might wonder, hey, is Kinji Fukasaku part of New Directors Month? Surprisingly, he actually has been covered before because he directed Message from Space (1978) that we covered years ago. But there are films one (i.e., me) should probably check out such as Battle Royale (2000) or the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series of films (1973-1976). Incidentally, Kitano ended up working with Fukasaku on Battle Royale.

Sexy Beast.

Review #2501: Sexy Beast.

Cast: 

Ray Winstone (Gary 'Gal' Dove), Ben Kingsley (Don Logan), Ian McShane (Teddy Bass), Amanda Redman (DeeDee Dove), James Fox (Harry), Cavan Kendall (Aitch), Julianne White (Jackie), and Álvaro Monje (Enrique) Directed by Jonathan Glazer.

Review: 

"I’m not the kind of director who has 10 projects on the go to see which one works out. It feels more like music to me — I have this idea for an album and I want to make it. If I do something, I have to do it well and sometimes that takes a little time."

I suppose I should've done this one sooner. Sexy Beast was the debut feature film of Jonathan Glazer, who grew up in London to a Reform Jewish family (he noted that that in his childhood, he encountered various "East End Jews who had moved to the suburbs for a better quality of life" that imprinted on him with their culture) saw him attend Jewish Free School. He then went to art school because he believed that drawing was the only thing he was good at. However, he got into the habit of directing because there were friends of his in bands that wanted him to shoot music videos for them. Eventually, after graduating with a degree in theatre design from Nottingham Trent University, Glazer got into making film trailers and eventually got into doing commercials; eventually, he did videos for bands such as Radiohead. Apparently, Glazer was slated to direct for the first time with the movie Gangster No. 1 which was written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto based on their play before disagreements with the casting led to all three people leaving (Paul McGuigan eventually made the film in 2000). According to Scinto, Sexy Beast "was born, out of a reaction to all that chaos and soap opera", going from a stage play draft with the working title "Gangster No. 2" to, well, Sexy Beast; the two had one further collaboration turned into a film with 44 Inch Chest (released in 2009 which also featured McShane and Winstone). Made for a budget of roughly $4 million that premiered in the festival circuit in 2000 before going into theaters in 2001, the movie was a light decent hit with audiences, apparently more so in America than expected. Glazer has since directed select commercial advertisements and three further films (which unlike Beast had Glazer serve as co-writer) with Birth (2004), Under the Skin (2013) and The Zone of Interest (2023), which won an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film*.

Glazer apparently called the making of the film "perfect baptism for me" because of the writing that he could trust completely for a film that is particularly intense in its dialogue for what Glazer once called "neo noir" that is basically trying to have a heist while avoiding being a "heist movie". Shaggy dog heist film or not, there is plenty of mischief to experience within the obvious qualities that come with Winstone being paired with Kingsley. It's because you get a passively bulked sunburned lead presence paired with someone who basically is fighting with him on a primal level with such a level of containment that is actually pretty frightening. At least, for a movie that basically shows the upcoming storm by having a boulder crash down the hill onto a pool in the opening minutes. So yes, you can't really hide from your past, but you can sure try to confront the present to maintain a worthwhile future. Within its aspects of the thriller is black comedy that actually is quite entertaining in the machinations of how you can make 88 minutes roll along where you aren't thinking about the heist as much as you are experiencing pros at work. Kingsley just has that magic to startle you with his presence and where he packs his expressions and dialogue in a way that just sounds tailor-made to him while Winstone lumbers as one could only do as someone who aspires to stay in their particular corner of the burning sun (as opposed to the burn of the heist). McShane is intimidating enough in the brief moments one sees of him around the scene of the growing crime (consider how the last scene sees him and Winstone talk about the various truths that lie under the surface). The heist in London isn't the point, it's a film all about what you see and hear in Spain more than anything, I imagine. As a whole, Sexy Beast is basically an acquired taste that either sticks with you or just leaves out the back door. I thought it was curious enough within its maneuvering of the crime film with humor and solid enough performances to make the journey worth watching.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*It was set in 1943 in the life of German Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss filmed in German, Polish, and Yiddish. I hear it's a good movie. I just want to mention that film mostly because the Oscar speech he did talked about the ongoing Gaza war that managed to make a whole bunch of people look like petulant children. 

Onibaba.

Review #2500: Onibaba.

Cast: 

Nobuko Otowa (Older Woman), Jitsuko Yoshimura (Younger Woman), Kei Satō (Hachi), Taiji Tonoyama (Ushi), and Jūkichi Uno (The masked Samurai warrior) Written and Directed by Kaneto Shindō.

Review: 

"Speaking about Onibaba in particular, my main historical interest focuses on ordinary people . . . their energy to carry themselves beyond the predicaments they encounter daily. I wish to describe the struggles of the so-called common people, which usually never appear in recorded history. This is why I made Onibaba. My mind was always on the commoners, not on the lords, politicians, or anyone of name and fame. I wanted to convey the lives of down-to-earth people who have to live like weeds."

I suppose it's something to be a filmmaker that made nearly 50 movies and lived to be 100. Born in Hiroshima, Kaneto Shindo stepped into films as a teenager when he joined the art section of the Shinko-Kinema studio in Tokyo in 1939. Inevitably, he was later drafted into the Japanese Army, where he served with a squad that saw all but him and five others killed in action. He returned from the war and worked at Shochiku as a script writer that saw him make connections with Kozaburo Yoshimura, who he formed an independent film company with (alongside actor Taiji Tonoyama) called Kindai Eiga Kyōkai. He directed his first film with Story of a Beloved Wife (1951) for Daiei Film, which was loosely based on his first marriage. That film featured Nobuko Otowa as the lead and she ended up starring in numerous Shindo movies. Likely one of his most noted early works came with Children of Hiroshima (1953), which saw him invited by the Japan Teachers Union that was admired enough to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival while ironically also being criticized by the Union for not going further in social criticism. Shindo made a variety of features from the dialogue-less The Baked Island (1960), horror movies such as Kuroneko (1968), biodramas such as The Life of Chikuzan (1977), comedy-dramas such as A Last Note (1995) and movies based on his war experiences such as Postcard (2010), which he did in his nineties; he died of natural causes in 2012 at the age of 100.

I will admit that there was an inkling of doing this film for the horror season last year. No, really. Some people might call it a stage drama or a period drama, and sure, some people can go with that, but it basically is a horror movie within the confines of masks and erotic nature (besides, horror deniers always want to call things "dramas" and "thrillers" with this or Les Diaboliques because they don't have guts). The horrors that lie within outcasts and the craven nature of trying to survive is one that seems timeless regardless of it being the 14th century or modern times. Shindo was inspired by a Shin Buddhist parable that he heard as a child (referred to as yome-odoshi-no men/niku-zuki-no-men), which involved a demon mask and, well, women. Apparently, the effects of the mask on who wears it was supposed to be symbolic of the disfigurement of the victims of the atomic bombings. But here we are with something where a group of scavengers must confront the most real thing of all: sex. It is such a dazzlingly haunting film to see the amoral qualities explode like ice, complete with having such a devastating look on the prairie and the people who live and die on it. It should be noted that the age difference between Otowa and Yoshimura was just 19 years. And yet each pull off tremendous performances, particularly with Otowa, who manages to evoke the feeling that arises from being one of flesh and blood with obvious desires even wrapped in the isolation of the reeds. Consider how she handles seeing the younger woman entwined with a newly arrived man in Satō (who plays it so well in smarmy charm) and clings on to a tree, for example. The 102 minutes rolls along with deliberate pacing that rewards those who like icy composition and even colder tension before the demon mask comes into play, which basically serves as a sort of curse for all involved. Admittedly, the ending is a bit quizzical, mainly because it just...ends. I suppose it makes sense to go with ambiguity that has a pit that might as well be purgatory for the lead characters that they just can't escape. As a horror drama, this is a pretty damn good one to let sift through you with a worthwhile chilly experience.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Yes, that's right, 2,500 reviews - you may remember Movie Night cracked 2,000 on April 20, 2023. Only so many reviews to go to 3,000.

The Stunt Man.

Review #2499: The Stunt Man.

Cast: 

Peter O'Toole (Eli Cross), Steve Railsback (Cameron), Barbara Hershey (Nina Franklin), Allen Goorwitz (Sam), Alex Rocco (Jake), Sharon Farrell (Denise), Adam Roarke (Raymond Bailey), Philip Bruns (Ace), Charles Bail (Chuck Barton), and John Garwood (Gabe) Directed by Richard Rush.

Review: 

"The idea of a fugitive hiding his identity by posing as a stuntman and falling under the dominance of a director seemed like a marvelous way to examine our universal panic and paranoia over controlling our own destinies. And it offered a chance to do it inside the structure of a big screen big action picture, which would be entertaining at the same time.”

It does help to look outside the box with someone who directed a total of twelve films. Richard Rush liked films from a young age, once stating in an interview that he saw Mildred Pierce (1945) fifteen times while working as a theater usher. He attended the UCLA Film School and stated with clear honesty that the Theater Department was wonderful while not learning anything about film, with his real education coming with making propaganda (his word) TV programs about the Korean War. He had a production company to produce commercials and industrial films before selling it so he could make what became his first film: Too Soon to Love (1960), which he ended up selling to Universal Pictures for $250,000 (of note is one of Rush's co-writers was a young Francis Ford Coppola) that was described once as "the first American New Wave film". Other highlights include some work for AIP such as The Savage Seven, studio work for Columbia with Getting Straight (1970), a "love it or hate it" film that served as an early example of the buddy cop movie with Freebie and the Bean (1974). Rush could not get as much work after The Stunt Man: he was paid to walk away from Air America [1990] and the production of Color of Night [1994] had a publicized disagreement about the best cut that gave him a heart attack, although Rush's version on DVD apparently was better than the theatrical version. At any rate, save for a DVD documentary about the making of The Stunt Man, Rush mostly retreated to his Bel Air residence for the rest of his life*; he died in 2021 at the age of 92.

In 1970, Paul Brodeur's novel The Stunt Man was published. Almost immediately, there were ideas of making a film adaptation, which actually started with Brodeur's Harvard classmate Frederick Wiseman. Francois Truffaut and Arthur Penn apparently were considered for the film but instead ended up doing films that have been said to have story elements from the book (with Day for Night [1973] and Night Moves [1975], respectively). At any rate, with the relative hit of Getting Straight (1970), Rush came into the picture in 1971 that originally was to have William Castle as producer. Columbia Pictures had the film rights and Rush wrote a treatment that apparently was described as one the executives were too confused about what genre it was (asking if it was a comedy, drama, social satire, or action adventure and getting "yes, all" as an answer does tend to make things a bit weird). Having decided to buy the film rights from the studio to work on a screenplay with Lawrence B. Marcus, Rush tried to shop for a studio to fund it to no avail (it did not help when the movie that ended up being called Hooper [1978]* was originally in development as "The Stuntman"). Eventually, the funding for the film came by way of Melvin Simon*, who actually was a prominent real estate investor before he tried his hand at producing in what he later called a "big mistake" (likely the most noted film with financing from Simon was Porky's [1982]) and was distributed by 20th Century Fox to little release.

I really wanted to like this movie. It is fascinating, sure, because this is a film that Peter O'Toole said was not so much released but "escaped". But I can't help but feel like most of the movie is a smoke and mirrors show to hide what is basically a shaggy dog story more than some sort of mixture of adventure-comedy-drama. Oh but certain stuff in the movie is just part of a movie- that only works if you are absorbed into the idea that the film is actually going to fool you, and, well, I didn't. It's not nearly as fun as, say, Hooper, and it is not nearly as compelling to answer the question of "is that it?" beyond presenting a mish-mash between Railsback and O'Toole-well okay there is Hershey, but eventually one starts to roll their eyes at the perceived free spirit (the first time you see her is in makeup trying to look like an old woman, which might actually be a bit funny in the punchline). Honestly, the most interesting part of the film is the exchange between Railsback and Bail (actual stuntman playing himself) in the art of the stunt, since it actually goes into something meaningful: selling the stunt with natural dialogue that is amusing in what it says about people with the stones to go through with a jump. Of course, O'Toole is basically doing an imitation of Rush (complete with clothes given by Rush to O'Toole) that has an amusing ego within wily maneuverings that extends to doing scenes on a crane. By the time the movie maneuvers through 131 minutes of semi-interesting moments involving stunts and moments meant to make one understand the PTSD-haze* of the lead focus, you just wish the conceit was funnier. It is one of those movies you might encounter in the middle of the night and possibly find something really curious within its game of conceit in movieland that is sometimes entertaining and other times is somewhere in the middle.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Incidentally, Rush wanted to do a film about Barry Seal for many years, as evidenced here - MONEY INTO LIGHT: AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD RUSH (PART 4 OF 4)

*Call it a hot take, but I think I enjoyed Hooper more than I enjoyed The Stunt Man.

*You might recognize Simon because he and his younger brother Herb bought the Indiana Pacers in 1983 and Herb still owns the team.

*I imagine that if my father had lived long enough to talk to me as an adult, it would've been something to talk to him as an adult, given that he served in Vietnam.

Come Drink with Me.

Review #2498: Come Drink with Me.

Cast: 

Cheng Pei-pei ("Golden Swallow" Zheng), Yueh Hua ("Drunken Cat" Fan Da-pei), Chan Hung-lit (Jade-Faced Tiger), Lee Wan-chung ("Smiling-Tiger" Tsu Kan), Yeung Chi-hing (Abbot Liao Kung), Wong Chung (Zheng Bi-qiu), Shum Lo ("Number Five", bandit), and Wang Ruo-Ping ("Baldie", bandit) Directed by King Hu.

Review: 

Sure, let's pick at least one perceived Hong Kong classic. Well, actually King Hu was born in Beijing to an affluent family that had an interest in Peking opera from a young age more than movies. He moved to Hong Kong (then under British rule) in 1949 that found him take a variety of odd jobs, one of which was with set design. By the mid-1950s, he was appearing as an actor in films but eventually found his way working with the Shaw Brothers and their noted studio, which saw him take on assistant duties with films such as The Love Eterne (1963). Hu became a director with Sons of the Good Earth (1965). However, Come Drink with Me (1966) ended up being the one with noted success. this film was written by Hu and Ting Shan-hsi; the decision to cast Cheng Pei-pei in the film was because of her background in dance and ballet in what was her breakout role. In 1968, Cheng reprised her role in Golden Swallow, which had Jimmy Wang as co-star that was directed by Chang Cheh. Hu left the Shaws and travelled aboard to direct that resulted in roughly a dozen movies of varying cult curiosity, whether that involved Taiwan with classics such as Dragon Inn (1966) and his cult classic A Touch of Zen (1970-71) or South Korea with Raining in the Mountain (1979). Hu directed on-and-off all the way until Painted Skin (1992); he died in 1997 at the age of 64. Films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which happened to have Cheng in a supporting role) are reported to have taken influence from Hu's films.

Okay I guess I forgot to mention the movie is called a "wuxia" for its genre, which basically is an adventure with martial arts and also elements of historical fantasy, which is, well, why you see swords and stuff.* Honestly, I wish I liked the movie more, but a solid 7 is still a solid film to seek out. The action that comes through basically is timed to rhythm that would basically qualify as a crowd-pleaser for 91 minutes, right down to its blend of studio sets and frontier viewing. You get a little musical interlude to go along with the proceedings, which basically go about the way you might expect in terms of good vs. evil. I suppose it will mean a good deal more for those familiar with opera or zen or, well, those who know their Mandarin. But one appreciates the editing and positioning to make the action feel enough like it is coming from a certain kind of quickness to really pop out to you. The best parts of the film basically are the staging of the action more so than the characters themselves, mainly because at a certain point it becomes more focused on Yueh rather than Cheng, although at least you get a sense that both are trying to maintain that sense of balance in trying to not be consumed by violence, at least when compared to Chan and Lee. The first half basically holds it together a bit more in curiosity (gee, a drunken master, I wonder) than the second half, arguably. It is relatively charming as a movie to see eventually play out, I just wish it was a bit more focused with its characters, although at least the climax is swift enough to let the film close on a relatively high note. As a whole, Come Drink with Me has a certain kind of appeal for those who like a bit of mystical charm within their action movies that rolls with rhythm and the energy to make the entertainment just click in a way that doesn't seem antiquated.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*There are essays about Hu and wuxia that might be more helpful in you are curious: Hu, King – Senses of Cinema

Or, alternatively, if you like reviews of stuff in horror or action from a source definitely more experienced: http://www.1000misspenthours.com/reviews/reviewsa-d/comedrinkwithme.htm Never let it be said that I don't try to recommend others

A Night at the Opera.

Review #2497: A Night at the Opera.

Cast: 

Groucho Marx (Otis B. Driftwood), Chico Marx (Fiorello), Harpo Marx (Tomasso), Kitty Carlisle (Rosa Castaldi), Allan Jones (Ricardo Baroni), Margaret Dumont (Mrs. Claypool), Sig Ruman (Herman Gottlieb), Walter Woolf King (Rodolfo Lassparri), and Robert Emmet O'Connor (Sergeant Henderson) Directed by Sam Wood.

Review: 

In fairness, Sam Wood does sound like a name I've covered before. But so it goes. Wood actually was a real estate broker in his young years in California before the growing industry of film for the 1900s eventually became something worth investing time into, starting as a movie assistant and eventually assistant director, most notably with Paramount Pictures for a number of years. He became a director by the turn of the 1910s with Wallace Reid. His efficient nature in getting films done landed him several opportunities to direct for a variety of places over the next two decades, although his longest tenure ended up being with MGM, where he worked in both silent and sound productions starting in 1927. In the middle of his tenure there, Wood ended up as the one directing a key assignment with the Marx Brothers because Irving Thalberg needed a dependable guy to direct the group (now consisting of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico), who had recently departed Paramount Pictures after five features because of contractual disputes that boiled over with Duck Soup (1933). The resulting success led to Wood directing the next Marx movie with A Day at the Races (released in 1937 months after Thalberg's death). For the Marx Brothers, they worked with MGM further on with At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940), and The Big Store (1941). Wood moved on to a wavering list of noted work, most notably with Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) before he became a freelance director for the remainder of his career and life, which led to films such as Our Town (1940), Kitty Foyle (1940), and Kings Row (1942). During production of Ambush (1950), Wood died from a heart attack at the age of 66 in 1949. Incidentally, both of Wood's Marx movies served as loose inspiration for the 1992 movie Brain Donors.

With this film, certain parts of the routines were basically workshopped with live stage performances that the brothers did on the road that was performed around the country prior to filming, with Wood traveling with the group from city to city to watch the audience reaction to the gags. The writing credits went to James Kevin McGuinness for the story, George S. Kaufman & Morrie Ryskind for the screenplay while gagman Al Boasberg contributed uncredited dialogue. If Thalberg's idea that the brothers would be best served by having a solid framework to hold up a grab-bag of jokes, well, he probably had a point. Basically, you get a good chunk of Marx mayhem with a handful of gags that come and go with solid efficiency depending on just how much you love seeing a group of oddballs casually loop in and out of affairs that either come off as trivial or just about the right sort of absurd. Obviously, the stateroom sequence is a key highlight of the film in that high-desired quality of rhythm and setup, although I would say the scene with the group trying to evade trouble involving furniture-moving is a nice favorite. Admittedly, the aspects involving Carlisle and Jones is the weakest part of the film, particularly since Dumont is such a solid straight presence anyway. But Groucho is Groucho in terms of just slinging lines full of zip with efficient nature that manages to evoke the charm within conman routines. And of course, there is the usual bumbling from Chico and the not-exactly silent Harpo. As a whole, it isn't hard to see why the Marx Brothers thought A Night at the Opera was one of their favorite films, as it manages to zing on a consistent level with its humor and execution to where one is immediately chuckling with its trio of stars with warm familiarity regardless of how many Marx movies you've seen. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Badlands.

Review #2496: Badlands.

Cast: 

Martin Sheen (Kit), Sissy Spacek (Holly), Warren Oates (Father), Ramon Bieri (Cato), Alan Vint (Deputy Tom), Gary Littlejohn (Sheriff), John Carter (Rich Man), Bryan Montgomery (Boy), Gail Threlkeld (Girl), and Charley Fitzpatrick (Clerk) Written, Produced, and Directed by Terrence Malick.

Review: 

"I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time, like Treasure Island. I hoped this would, among other things, take a little of the sharpness out of the violence but still keep its dreamy quality. Children's books are full of violence. Long John Silver slits the throats of the faithful crew. Kit and Holly even think of themselves as living in a fairy tale. Holly says, "Sometimes I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, but this never happened." But she enough believes there is such a place that she must confess to you she never got there." - Terrence Malick

I suppose there's no better way to start with a director as curious as Terence Malick than to just go with their debut. Born in Illinois but raised in the South, Malick studied at Harvard for philosophy and graduated with a bachelor's degree before electing to study further at Oxford University's Magdalen College. However, he left without a degree due to a disagreement over his thesis, which soon saw him travel back to the States to teach philosophy at MIT and do freelance journalism. However, he apparently felt that he wasn't a good teacher when it came to "the sort of edge one should have on the students", so he decided to focus on studying at AFI because of his liking of movies "in a kind of naive way". He made his first short film with Lanton Mills in 1969. Malick's agent got him freelance work revising scripts, which saw him do uncredited drafts for Dirty Harry (1971) and Pocket Money (1972). Malick raised half of the money by approaching people outside of the film industry (alongside using $25,000 of his own savings) while the other half was raised by Edward R. Pressman. Malick described in an interview prior to the release of the film that books such as The Hardy Boys and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, had influence on the script (at least one that he realized influenced him after doing the script). The movie was more a critical darling than an audience hit at the time, but so it goes. Malick continued his career with Days of Heaven (1978) before curiosity reigned over exactly what he was doing before his next film with The Thin Red Line years later in 1998; at any rate, he has directed nine features and one experimental documentary in over five decades as a filmmaker. 

The real events were curious in themselves: Starkweather murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming in 1958 at the age of 19 that saw him accompanied by his 14-year-old girlfriend in Caril Ann Fugate (with Badlands, Sheen was 32 and Spacek was 22). Fugate claimed she was a hostage, not knowing until later that her mother, stepfather and sister had already been killed by Starkweather. Sentenced to life, she served 18 years in prison* while Starkweather (once quoted as saying dead people were all on the same level) got the electric chair. Those events have inspired a few other movies such as The Sadist (1963) and Natural Born Killers (1994)*. With Badlands, you get a pretty curious film because it isn't so much just a violent film as it is one that has a strange nature to looking out of time within what actually is seen and heard, mainly because it is more Spacek's film than anything. How else would one understand the type to string along with Sheen unless you hear the underlying journey told by Spacek? There is a haunting nature to the way she navigates the film in terms of passivity that isn't merely just naivety but instead is something that seems removed from, well, you or me. With Sheen, it's much easier to look at him and understand how he could corral certain things to go his way with his magnetism of nonchalance (incidentally, he believed it was the best script he had ever read). They are two empty souls that think the gun as a magic wand (okay that came from Malick) that traverse through the landscape with the same kind of weary nature that we can only hope we don't see in ourselves. They end up as doomed figures hurtling through oblivion that can only be understood by actually viewing the film rather than just seeing images of it and its landscapes. The drama isn't in the chase or in the conflict between these people, nope, instead it is a movie of people who are just in their own element of actions and impulses, which for some might be spookier than a straight-crime movie. But so it goes. As a whole, Badlands is a curious film to see unfold in all of its interesting elements that come from what you see and hear in a spree of morbid curiosity. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Fugate is still alive, as evidenced by a not-too-distant documentary about her: ‘It’s about more than just a crime’: what if a teen killer was actually a victim? | Documentary | The Guardian

*And even a Springsteen song.

Inu-Oh.

Review #2495: Inu-Oh.

Cast: 

Avu-chan (Inu-Oh), Mirai Moriyama (Tomona), Tasuku Emoto (Ashikaga Yoshimitsu), Kenjiro Tsuda (Inu-Oh's father), and Yutaka Matsushige (Tomona's father)

Directed by Masaaki Yuasa.

Review: 

"I get inspired with a lot of things I see, hear, smell, and touch in everyday life... I often derive inspiration even from really modest visuals; a commercial, a cut from a movie, a movement from an anime as well as nameless flowers and grasses blooming on the road, clouds, stars, and moons in the sky. I’m also inspired with what I’m currently interested in and feeling. My humble wish for creating anime is to have common images, conversations, and scenes sublimed into art works."

It really can all be about timing. Masaaki Yuasa loved animation from a young age and liked to entertain his kindergarten friends with drawings...and yet he thought his teenage years would change his interests. But he happened to be a teen in the midst of an animation boom in Japan (specifically films such as Space Battleship Yamato) that made it sounded like Japanese animation would be great for adults too that maybe Yuasa could aspire to be in that industry. He thought about pursuing a job as an artist in anime or manga but eventually felt that being an animator might be the way to go. He majored in fine art at Kyushu Sangyo University in oil painting. He stated that he was more of a line drawer/sketcher more than one who could "draw manga-like stuff". At any rate, his first job was with Ajia-do as an in-between animator. Despite having doubts that he should stay on at one point due to his doubts about his abilities within pressure, he kept going and eventually did various work at the studio from key animations to storyboarding on programs such as Chibi Maruko-chan (1990) and Crayon Shin-chan (1992). He became a director on an OVA series with Anime Rakugo Kan that same year and spent the next few years as a freelance animator before being asked to work on an adaptation of the manga Mind Game, which became his first feature film in 2004 that has a cult following. Among his various works in television, he also co-created the studio Science SARU that combines hand-drawn animation and Flash animation. Inu-Oh (which premiered on the festival circuit in 2021 before general release in May 2022) is his fifth theatrical film, following the wave of films he directed with Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (2017), Lu Over the Wall (2017), and Ride Your Wave (2019). 

Inu-Oh just happened to be one of those films I glanced on a Walmart shelf a few months ago and decided, sure, save it for sometime in the future to view. Once upon a time, The Tale of the Heike told of the clans that lived and died in the ultimate battle for power in Japan that saw the Heike fall to the Genji. In 2017, Hideo Furukawa wrote a novel called Tales of the Heike: Inu-Oh. Incidentally, not much is really known of the actual Inu-Oh as a performer besides being noted as having performed for the shogun that has no surviving works.* Yuasa stated the film was one that "portrays weak people", one where the great things will just be dust before the wind, where love and power will be remembered and so on. It has been noted that while it isn't a historical movie about the Muromachi period (roughly belonging to 1336 to 1573), Yuasa wanted to get a glimpse of it with the habits that arose from those times to surround the friendship he wanted to show. You'll see and hear plenty with this film, one that sees at attempt at unity through the demands of order alongside the introduction of its musical talents before the film is half-way through its 98-minute runtime. The story (no, don't think about the sword that blinds somebody) is not exactly as important as it sounds when it comes to setting up its songs and vivid animation. In the beige (or gray) skies, a flourish for performances does stick out, although the design of Inu-Oh (one that sees him shift his limbs gradually throughout the film). Yuasa wanted to make a movie where you could see moves like Michael Jackson to go along with the grooves of acid rock that could astonish in its exaggerated matter because why not? The shows seen in terms of their execution is pretty entertaining. The flights of fantasy go hand in hand with that bond of kinship that is actually pretty interesting. It isn't so much a movie packed with high-tension acting from Avu-chan (lead vocalist/songwriter for Queen Bee) or Moriyama but what they do contribute is in the framing of the music as a team. There is just something about how they interact and how they play with the music that is engaging to remind one that history can be elevated (or taken away) by the way it is presented. Naturally, there is an inevitability within authority and conformity that only makes its resolution all the more interesting in saying that even though all (icon or martyr) will be washed away by the shores of time, at least there was a chance for one to try and reach an audience, and for some that might just be enough. As a whole, it is a visual and audio treat in terms of its experience more than anything, but Yuasa and company made a pretty good film here that is worth giving some time to.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars. 

Welcome to Movie Night: Season XVI and the fifth edition of New Directors Month for January. Yes, even with over 1,300 directors featured in fifteen years, it always seems like a good idea to branch out for different experiences, so let's see what we find in January. Previous starters of the tradition include 2022 (Blind Husbands), 2023 (Hell or High Water), 2024 (Metropolis [2001]), 2025 (Alice in the Cities).

*Incidentally, months before Inu-Oh was released in theaters, Science SARU was behind a net animation adaptation of Furukawa's 2016 translation of The Tale of the Heike for streaming/TV.