The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) — written and directed by Argento, in his first directorial effort — is not only beautifully shot and composed, but it is also serviceable in the plot department. I wasn’t captivated by the story, but it moved along gracefully enough that it didn’t distract from the compelling camera work which is, really, the movie’s claim to fame.
Those sharp Italians.
Jan 27
There’s a film missing from this update. One of the screener DVDs I meant to review wouldn’t play on any of my equipment, so the promised “experimental weirdness” will not be forthcoming. I’m sure you’re all terribly broken up about that, huh? As for the movies my DVD player would accept, we have…
Alien Resurrection (1997), in which the good names of a great many talented people are dragged enthusiastically through the mud…
Hardware (1990), in which we see what a hazardous undertaking giving your girlfriend a present can be when you live in a post-apocalyptic future…
and…
My Body Burns (1972), in which dirty old men, coniving young women, and rabidly jealous lesbians team up to power some of the least erotic erotica since Anais Nin blessedly returned her pen to the desk drawer.
So much for January
Jan 25
And I had such plans… But then my design/publication program and my server decided that they had irreconcilable differences; the upshot being a fortnight spent predominantly on hold. (And if I never have to listen to David Bowie’s “Golden Years” again…)
There are moments when I really think that the Luddites were onto something.
Time was short, and so is my main subject; so short, indeed, that it comes with a supporting feature…
Aka The Long And Winding (Yellow Brick) Road: Part 4. In which we take a brief look at the history of Technicolor, and ponder whether this obscure, independently-produced cartoon is in fact one of the most influential films of all time.
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Six guests gather at an island retreat for a weekend of fun, games, introspection, role-playing, performance art, ridicule, abuse and violence…
A critical step in the early career of Peter Weir, forming a bridge between the early, experimental shorts on which he cut his teeth and the feature-films that followed, Homesdale was also an important factor in the re-birth of Australian film at the beginning of the 1970s.
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Nikka/Nikkatsu month marches on…
3 SECONDS BEFORE THE EXPLOSION
Yabuki’s task is to find the jewels if he can, though it’s more important that he keep them out of the hands of certain other parties than it is that he actually get them into his own hands. Those other parties include a shady businessman named Takashima (Takashi Kanda), who actually possesses the jewels, and a gang of international drug smugglers staffed by an assortment of classic Eurospy archetypes: the competent hitman, the abusive underboss, the karate guy, the guy in a slim suit and fez, and of course, the German mastermind played by an American actor (Erik Neilson) doing the worst German accent ever and occasionally tossing out words like, “Achtung!’ and “Wunderbar!” to enforce the illusion that he is German. Everyone is in overdrive with their various plotting, because the deadline for the jewels becoming fair game for anyone who has them is fast approaching. I don’t quite understand why the deadline means so much for the jewel thieves. One assumes that they would be just as happy to steal the jewels from Takashima after he could claim to be the rightful owner. You know, what with them being a murderous gang of thieves and all.
And what to drink while watching a silly Japanese spy film from the 1960s? How about Nikka’s 17 year old Taketsuru Pure Malt?
500th review!
Jan 21
Just minutes ago, I put up the 500th review on The Unknown Movies. I never imagined years (and years) ago when I first started, I would get this far. I wish to thank Chris and Scott, the good folks at Stomp Tokyo, for sponsoring my site. I also wish to thank my fellow B-Masters for letting me join them and for all their support. Anyway, it’s business as usual, though I thought that for a fantastic occasion I would review something to do with the fantastic. That movie is Maxie, a major studio movie with Glenn Close dealing with spirits from the afterlife. As you might have guessed, there’s a good reason why you haven’t heard of this particular major studio movie.
More noms.
Jan 20
My occasional crash-course survey of the cannibal genre continues with Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978), in which a schlocky Italian director makes exactly the kind of movie that people mean when they speak derisively of schlocky Italian cinema. But hey, at least Ursula Andress looks good.
It's Hammer time (again)
Jan 17
April looks like being an expensive month.
The next Columbia “Icons” box set that was promised midway through last year – “Icons Of Suspense”, a collection of six thrillers from Hammer – is now tentatively slated for an April release; more details as they come to hand. This set collects Joseph Losey’s These Are The Damned (finally!), Cash On Demand (Pete! Yes!), Maniac, Never Take Sweets From A Stranger (aka Never Take Candy From A Stranger), The Snorkel and The Full Treatment (aka Stop Me Before I Kill). Once again, there is a chance to vote for your preferred cover art from the three choices shown above; the link is here.
Everyone’s probably heard this, but it’s worth repeating: Shout! Factory and New Horizons Pictures are remastering a range of Roger Corman productions. Those with confirmed release dates are Piranha (Special Edition), Humanoids From The Deep and Up From The Depths/Demon Of Paradise (double-disc) in April, and Piranha (Special Edition) (Blu-Ray), Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (Special Edition) (DVD and Blu-Ray) and Suburbia in May. Other titles listed to follow include Death Race 2000, Deathsport, Forbidden World and Galaxy Of Terror.
And in an astonishing – and astonishingly welcome – piece of news, Shout! Factory will also be remastering and releasing all eight of the “Showa” Gamera films. It is not clear yet whether these releases will include both the Japanese and American versions, but they may, at least by inference: Shout! is still trying to get hold of Gammera The Invincible, to which Kadokawa Pictures (the licensor) does not own the rights. Stay tuned for more details.
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Nikka/Nikkatsu month rambles on, this time with David serving up:
BRANDED TO KILL
The job is a fairly simple one. It is to transport a bigshot business man to Nagawa, but from the outset there are signs that this job is a little strange. Firstly, when they collect the car provided for them, Hanada and Kasuga find a dead body on the back seat. Hanada simply assumes it was the previous owner of the vehicle and arranges to dump the body on the way. Once they collect their ‘passenger’, a mysterious black car begins to tail them. In fact, at every length of the journey it appears that they are being followed. The tension begins to take its toll on Kasuga who begins to drink heavily — it is intimated that Kasuga was kicked out of the Yakuza because he has lost his nerve, and now drinks to conceal his fears.
Also, I have myself a dram of Nikka Whisky from the Barrel.
Blonde Ice was supposedly considered a lost film by the mid-’70s, though obviously prints have since surfaced. To label something a “lost film” conjures images of hidden treasure and holy grails, which in this case is certainly overselling what was found. It’s not a bad film; instead, it’s a mostly competent little B-list suspense-drama, the likes of which there dozens and dozens of examples among the non-lost films most of us have never seen.
Plus: Take the poll for Reader Revenge Month slot #2!
Yeah, okay. So I didn’t quite manage my goal of plugging the most glaring holes in my coverage of the last decade before the new one began. No matter. I can always take the pedant’s way out by claiming that the absence of a Year Zero in the Gregorian Calendar makes 2010 technically the last year of the aughts rather than the onset of the teens, right?
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), in which you’d retreat into a private fantasy world, too, if this were your childhood…
The Ruins (2008), in which the irritating stick-in-the-mud is right, as always…
Saw (2004), which is basically a full-contact version of those extra-credit logic puzzles you always got wrong in school…
and…
Silent Hill (2006), in which the underground coal fire that’s been raging for 30 years is honestly the least of the town’s problems.