Shamo

This adaptation of a manga about a fighter would have been better served by abandoning its source material entirely. The story (a young man gets sent to prison for killing his parents and emerges a tough martial artist) and the character (a vicious, wronged thug who lacks the wits or skill to win a match) are good enough to sustain interest, but the exposition and the lack of any cohesion to the scenes ultimately make the film a bit of a disappointment.

From the director of Dog Bite Dog, one would expect a gritty, grim tale, and indeed one is provided: Shamo must mean "shat upon by society". Nice touches abound throughout: the Johnny Walker-swilling sensei, the gaudily-dressed prostitute love(?)-interest, and even The Beast (Kung Fu Hustle) as the head of the top martial arts gym.

Ranks with Zebraman for one of the best martial arts finishing moves out there.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Shamo (NYAFF, IMDB)

Wince : [****_]
Flinch : [****_]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

The Most Beautiful Night in the World

What does one expect, exactly, from a three-hour movie about sex?

Well, certainly not two hours of a newly-transferred reporter trying to earn his way back to the city by finding a scoop on any one of the village locals.

The story basically goes as follows. Many years ago, the Jomon tribe maintained an paralleled birth rate due to their use of powerful aphrodisiacs. Eventually, they were slaughtered by jealous neighboring tribes who weren't getting laid. Years later, a medium with a lethal embrace and a terrorist master of the art of hung fu rediscover the source of the Jomon's power.

There's a lot going on in this movie, but very little to tell: it's good, it's fun, it's unique, and it makes you want to save the world through shagging.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

The Most Beautiful Night in the World (NYAFF)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [***__]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [****_]

Catchphrase: Jomon Power!

Mandingo

Lame Hammond Maxwell goes to town and buys a proper Mandingo slave named Mede (beating a lonely German woman at the bidding), who he trains to be a fighter. Hammond has a thing for the female slaves himself, and his jealous wife decides to reciprocate by forcing herself on the strapping young buck. Hijinks, hilarity, and a bunch of other h-words ensue.

Standout performance by James Mason as straight-talking patriarch Warren Maxwell, whose untimely death was cheered by the bulk of the audience I saw this with, and sadly lamented by myself. Ingrained racist though he was, Maxwell seemed to be the only character in the film with a lick of good sense.

All sorts of good stuff in this one: bloodsport, slavery, mint juleps, abortions, lynchings. A real trip to the dilapidated mansions down south.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Mandingo (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [****_]

Scene Stealer: Topaz!

Naked

Young everyman (ha! just kidding) Johnny flees Manchester after raping a barfly and makes his way down to the big smoke in a stolen car. He shows up at on an ex-girlfriend's doorstep, hooking up with her and her roommate before the two of them drive him crazy and send him back out on the streets.

What follows is a series of largely unconnected episodes that serve as a character study of the feckless drifter: commiserating with a Scottish lout, bantering with a security guard, seducing various unsuspecting females, drunken encounters with scattered laborers, thugs, and his ex-girlfriend's sex-crazed yuppie landlord.

The quality of the dialog is what makes this film top-notch: quick-witted enough to entertain, incisive enough to leave a mark. A slice o' life out of Merry Ol' E.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Naked (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [**___]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

The Death of Mr Lazarescu

European horror at the state of the Romanian health care system is what fuels this film. Mr Lazarescu, an aging alcoholic, calls an ambulance after getting a sharp pain in his guts, and gets shuffled from hospital to hospital as doctors refuse to treat him first due to his alcoholism, then finally because he will obviously not survive. All of this occurs in more or less real-time, making for a slow crawl of a movie.

To an American audience, the film rapidly becomes tedious, inured as we are to horror stories of the health care system in the States where the wrong limb is amputted, flesh-eating strep is contracted, and so forth. Hey, if the doctor refuses to treat you, that means he can't mess anything up, right?

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Moartea domnului Lazarescu (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [***__]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

Phil the Alien

Take me to your leader, eh?

Phil's dad crashed the car, dying in the process and leaving Phil stranded far from home. Phil and his dad are shape-shifting aliens from a planet of peace (with periodic eruptions of ultraviolence), the car is a spaceship, and far-from-home is Canada.

A fun film with a drunken alien, a talking beaver, a whale-loving secret serviceman, a messiah cult, polychromatic fur coats, an alien dissection lab, and lots of White Dog (beer, whiskey, whatever).

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Phil the Alien (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [***__]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [****_]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [****_]
Explicability : [***__]


Best off-the-menu ordering: "Sammy the alien". See the quote on IMDB.

Black Christmas

The original "the calls are coming from inside the house!" slasher movie.

Black Christmas is an unexpected delight, a nearly perfect horror film. The killer is never seen directly, only in silhouette with the occasional creepy shot of his eye peering out of the shadows. There is no justification for the killer's actions, no backstory to explain his crazed Billy and Agnes rantings on the phone, and no attempt at all to pretend he has been killed or caught at the end.

There is no need to explain the plot -- serial killer breaks into sorority house and starts doing his thing -- but some of the characters are quite noteworthy. Barb steals the show as an alcoholic broken-home sorority girl with an acerbic wit. Jessica puts in a good performance as the Empowered Woman who argues to her boyfriend that yes, by damn, she will have that abortion because there is still a lot in life she wants to do. Finally, Mrs Mac, the matronly lady in charge of the girls and guardian of their morals, has more bottles hidden than the guy from Lost Weekend.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Black Christmas (IMDB)

Wince : [**___]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [**___]

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

Drunken Angel

An early Kurosawa gem set, like Stray Dog, in post-World War II Japan.

An alcoholic doctor treats the yakuza Matsunaga (Toshiro Mifue) for a bullet wound, and discovers he has TB. Matsunaga refuses to change his lifestyle to undergo treatment, preferring to continue his tough-guy ways of drinking, womanizing, fighting, and gambling.

The doc gives him the "dying of TB is not glamorous you idiot" speech, which helps things a little until Matsunaga's former boss is released from jail and starts to retake control of his former territory. Matsunaga soon realizes he is not as powerful in the gang as he thought, and makes a half-hearted (the other half of that heart having been eaten up by TB, no doubt) attempt at redemption.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Yoidore tenshi (IMDB)

Wince : [*____]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [*____]
Gape : [*____]

Beerequisite : [**___]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [***__]

The Last Winter

Ron Perlman struggling to keep his sanity in an Arctic wasteland. Actually, it's not much of a struggle

The movie is about a drilling crew out in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge determining the feasibility of drilling now that Bush has pushed through his drill-everywhere-you-like-guys oil legislation. You think the green political statements end there? Oh you just wait, pal. They're more persistent than the monsters in this film.

OK, so the head of the project flies back from a meeting with the boss carrying a mandate to get the trucks in and start drilling. Objecting to this is an eco-friendly bearded nut who's been attached to the project as a way to placate Green Party voters. People start going crazy and dying.

Or is something killing them? The film can't decide, and when it does it's too late. You've spent most of the movie believing people are going nuts, for whatever reasons, then the Ghost of Pleistocine Past appears to mop up the rest. In five minutes the actors are decimated and the world is being destroyed by Nature.

Or is it? You'll never know, because the CGI budget ran out before they could complete the final shot. I was waiting for an hourglass to appear and a dialog box saying "Rendering...", but instead the credits rolled.

The film is watchable for all that: the acting is good, the filming is good, and it does a decent job of building up a lot of tension. It's quite heavy-handed with the eco-political dialog, though, and the abrupt ending leaves one wondering what the buildup was intended to anticipate.


* * * R A T I N G * * *

The Last Winter (IMDB)

Wince : [***__]
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [***__]

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [*____]
Obscurity : [*____]
Explicability : [***__]

What I would do different: Those CGI monsters have to go.