Saturday Aug 4 through Friday August 10, 2007

Saturday, August 4, 2007
The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark - 1962


I am so psych'e about this, I can hardly stand it.For those not familiar with the new group The Film Crew, it is made up of former MST3K regulars Mike Nelson,Bill Corbett,and Kevin Murphy. They are now hired to provide commentaries for movies that don't have them. It's a thin premise. But I guess they couldn't just say "We loved MST3K, and wanted more". But that's what you're getting, without the robots are black-overlays. And, in fact, since they're not on basic cable, they can be a little more racy.


I'm fairly sure I've seen the uncut, SWV version of this. Or at least, parts seem familiar.


Buy them all, so they will continue to make 'em. Come on, you know you want it.


Sunday, August 5, 2007
Seven Swords - 2005


And the hits just keep on coming. I can sum this up in one word. WOW! If you thought Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon kicked ass, if you loved Zu Mountain, then go rent or buy this movie immediately! Awesome score. Beautiful cinematography. Outstanding special effects and wirework. It's only drawback? It's long. 153 minutes long. And there was a four hour version. You wanna know how good this movie is? I want to see that version.


Commentary with director Hark Tsui and HK cinema expert Bey Logan (sp?). Technical, but lots of philosophy and practical stuff. This is an excellent commentary. I was never bored during the entire 153 minutes.


The second disc has a lot of extras. Making of Seven Swords, which has actors explain their characters, and we see some behind the scenes. It's not a true making of, but was an interesting feature nonetheless. There's also Deleted and Extended scenes. Here we see, in some "unfinished" scenes, that some of the weapons are actually CG. Amazing. I mean, I knew that some of the things the swords do had to be painted in, but I never would have guessed that there was nothing there in reality at all. Truly masterful. And finally, there is a 4 part behind the scenes that really is more of a making of. I guess others don't have the clear difference of these two extras that I do.


This is a disc that I've rented, that I intend to actually buy. It's that good. Now, if you didn't like CTHD, and don't like Kung Fu movies, then you probably won't like this either. But if you like that genre, this is a milestone.


Monday, August 6, 2007
Living Hell: Japanese Chainsaw Massacre - 2000


On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, we have a grisly mind "F" of a movie here. Featuring lots of weird camera work and weird music, and the ickiest Japanese girl EVER! And the Chainsaw Massacre connection is not obvious until nearly the very end. But I enjoyed it. But that may be because I like 'mindf' movies, and J-Horror.


Director's Commentary tells us that they were influenced more by Hitchcock than Tobe Hooper. That they had a budget of $100K, and took 9 days to shoot. That must have been rough, as there are a lot of setups in this movie. And there's cool technical info, like the way they did one of the weird camera things I notices, was by dollying out while zooming in. Interesting.


Two very irritating things in the commentary however:
1) Keeps saying "There's me again". Yeah, okay, we get it. You play one of the major characters.
2) Stops talking for several minutes at a time. Over and over again. THAT's why you never do solo commentaries.


Tuesday, August 7, 2007
G.I. Samurai - 1979


From the Sonny Chiba collection. Japanese soldiers are transported in time back to Feudal Japan. Not sure where the GI part comes in, since there's no US folks in it at all. The oddest thing, however, is that once they're convinced that they've travelled in time, there's no concern at all. No worrying about the Prime Directive, or changing history at all. They join forces with a single warlord, and then use a tank and a helicopter to help him unite Japan. Wouldn't the wreckage of these things have influenced the technological development of Japan? They never go into that.


And did the warlord of ancient Japan have rifles? Even muskets? I know they had gunpowder, so they COULD have, but I'm not sure they did at that time.


You'd think that with such a technological lead, they'd crush the opposition, right? Well, its not too big of a spoiler to say NOPE. Does the work OVERRUN mean anything to you. And after that fateful battle, there's still 20 minutes, and I'm really unsure what the final message is, especially considering the music. Maybe someone smarter than me can tell me what they were trying to say.

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
Chiller Disc Double Feature
Dead Men Walk - 1943

George Zucco, he's in so many of these old flicks. 97 films from 1931 thru 1951. This is a pretty standard B movie horror movie from the 40's. One thing you can say about these older movies, they are very "family" friendly.

Then there's a cartoon between the two movies. Oswald the Rabbit?? Who the heck is that? This episode (The mechanical Man), well, let's just say that the word Bizarre really doesn't do it justice.

The Monster Maker - 1944

Interestingly, this has a slate at the beginning from the British Film Sensor, certifying it has "passed Horrific", ie rated "R" as it cannot be shown if "children under 16 are present". I didn't see anything here that would earn it more than a PG. After all, it features a guy in a gorilla suit. Gotta admit that the bad guy is slimy and evil. Wow!

Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Devil's Plaything - 1974 aka Vampire Ecstasy

Directed by Joe Sarno, so you know we're in for a sleazy good time. Boobage within the first 2 minutes. Told ya we were in for a good time.

Film's in bad shape, which is too bad, but the transfer is good, with nice bright colors. Some of the sets and actors look and act like Andy Milligan stock. One gets the impression that there was a hotter/harder stuff was shot, but cut out of this version. More natural boobage and bush than you can shake a stick at. This is a great combo horror/sexploitation movie, without humor.

Other extras include: Touch of Horror, an interview with Joe Sarno. Only seven minutes long, but interesting nonetheless.

Doomed - 2007

In the year 2020, Survivor has gotten deadly. Cheesy graphics, trying too hard to look like a TV show. Zombies! Everything's better with zombies. Cheap deaths, simplistic dialogue, and (say it with me now) I HATE ALL OF THEM. And the final insult, it's only 70 minutes long, IF you count the slow credits crawl. This is a great big ripoff. Avoid at all costs.

Friday, August 10, 2007
Shogun Assassin - 1980 The Digitally Reconstructed Collector's Edition

Holy crap! No wonder this was a grindhouse favorite. Look at all the blood! Yikes! Is this over the top or what?

Music is cool, and IMDB says it was done by Mark Lindsay (lead singer of Paul Revere & The Raiders). And the three main bad guys are like the fates in Big Trouble in Little China. I bet they were Carpenter's inspiration.

Man, the gore in this thing is off the chart for 1980. This is a real treat for gorehounds!

Extras on this disc include: Program Notes - interesting facts about the film and history. Also there's Daigoro's History Lesson - fascinating info about the time during which the movie takes place. And finally a Photo gallery comparing the old and restored video.