Enter The Void

Further proof that Gaspar Noe has nothing to say.

Plot in a nutshell: Guy lives in a Tokyo ghetto with his sister. He mostly takes and sells drugs, she strips and whores. Drug deal goes wrong, guy dies, sister grieves, guy's friend moves in to console her, guy gets reborn as their love-child. Oh, and did I mention the Tibetan Book of the Dead? Because the characters do, a few hundred times, without actually giving any reason why that rites-of-passage book has any bearing on, well, anything going on in the film. Except maybe the guy becoming a ghost after he dies, or his spirit floating around or whatever, though even this is a stretch.

About fifteen minutes into this movie, you're thinking "wow, this is very fresh and vibrant, this could be one of the best cinematic experience of the year".

About an hour in, you're thinking "OK, I get it. Now please stop."

The strobe effects are just annoying. The tendency of the camera to zoom and spin into the first visible circular object in a room (fan, stove burner, duct -- any hole will do!) becomes so tiresome that snorts of derision accompanied these transitions halfway through the second hour. The final hotel-of-love scene caused outright laughter when the glowing genitals made their appearance. Maybe a Cannes audience found it offensive, but the audience at the IFC Center just found it ludicrous.

It may seem nit-picking to focus on these three flaws in a film that provided so much in terms of cinematography, seedy sides of Tokyo, and down-and-out lifestyle ... but really, they ruin it. Perhaps the film could have been saved if there was any take-away, but it remains a collection of impressionistic sequences with a "love is all there is and by love we mean sex and such" message tacked onto the end.

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

Enter the Void(IMDB)

Wince : [*****] Every time the camera goes into a duct.
Flinch : [**___]
Retch : [**___]
Gape : [**___]
Groan :[**********] Yes, I added that just for this film.

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

Memories I want to erase: ...about 3 hours' worth.

What I would do different: Maybe read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, for starters.

Milocrorze

NYAFF has been coming across as less and less inspired since their move to Lincoln Center, resulting in a corresponding decrease in attendance. This year, Milocrorze appeared to be one of three films worth seeing (Yellow Sea and Foxy Festival  being the others).

The films opens with a gaudily-dressed kid (picture the Dead Man suit in full color) living with his badly CGIed cat, in his own house as if he were an adult. He meets an adult woman in the park. They fall in love. Eventually she leaves him. He's a child at heart, see? Get it?

The story is replaced by a spotlight on a guy giving love advice to young men. Sure, he's a bit of a prick, and a bit of a misogynist, but the dance numbers are reminiscent of Zebraman 2. Quite fun, and takes a couple of nice shots at introspective-obsessive teenage boys.

After this, there's a samurai story with a somewhat confused and conflicting sense of what period it takes place in (let's take a guess... a "steampunk" setting?). Best to just assume post-apocalyptic and move on. This is the meat of the movie: lots of crazy, fast-slow-fast, gleefully entertaining swordfights. As much a send up of the slashing-katana genre as the previous two segments were of anime and chat shows.

Finally, the wrap-up. The kid from the first segment has "grown up" (still dressing badly) and encounters  the woman he fell in love with, and finally achieves closure. The whole thing has been a metaphor, see? A childlike heart falls obsessively in love, is hurt, becomes a ladykiller, fights an entire lifetime to regain his love, then gets over it.

The middle of the movie was certainly enjoyable, but really, the entire thing was too deliberately quirky and too vapidly symbolic to really take seriously.

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

Milocrorze (NYAFF)
Mirokurôze (IMDB)

 Wince : [***__]
 Flinch : [**___]
 Retch : [*****] (* if you are colorblind)
 Gape : [***__]

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

Crossover I'd like to see: Kumagai vs Zebra Queen, dancing on the ground-up corpses of the Black-Eyed Peas.

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!

Gangster VIP

Fresh-from-prison (on a murder rap!) yakuza Goro returns to his turf and finds things radically changed: his gang are now losers, getting the short end of the stick from the other gangs.

After things get bad and Goro loses a finger, he decides to force a confrontation with a rival gang, which doesn't seem to have been a good plan in retrospect.

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

Burai yori daikanbu (IMDB)

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

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

Reality Check: Flailing about in the mud is the new martial art school, eh? Really hands it to those in the hitting-like-a-girl school.

Lessons Learned: When trading your finger for the release of your friend, demand to see him first.

Blood Diner

Two brothers open a vegetarian diner (well, it serves vegetarians, often to other vegetarians) after exhuming their sorcerer/serial-killer father and transplanting his still-living eyes and brain into a jar in order to guide them in their virgin-mutilating (and sewing back together) quest to reincarnate the five-million-year-old goddess Shitar.

Quite a mouthful, eh? And I didn't even mention the zombie-rock concert finale!

This film truly has everything. A must-see, and see-again.

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

Blood Diner (IMDB)

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

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

Reality Check: Wait, the human race is HOW old again?

Character Most Likely to be Reborn as a WWF Star: Little Jimmy Hitler

Things I've Never Seen Before: Did he just cut off his own penis and threaten to use it as a weapon?

Other Notable Moments:
* Ouch! Killed by a deep fryer in the most horrible head-battered fashion!
* Who is manning that ventriloquist dummy?
* Topless Aerobics! Yay!
* Another Hitler?
* It's the build-your-own-cheerleader store!
* "The killer was last seen with a knife in one hand, and his genitals in the other."

The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai

Guaranteed to be the only film you'll see where the (cloned) fonger of George W Bush is a major character!

Sachiko Hanai is a call girl specializing in teacher fetishes. In the course of killing time between clients, she gets innocent-bystandered in a shootout at a cafe. The bullet lodges in her forebrain, unlocking (in defiance of all known neuroscience) her latent potential and turning her into a supergenius.

The finger of George Bush penetrates her, er, consciousness and delivers a message: she must track down a stolen Doomsday Device before the bad guys do.

Not surprisingly, Sachiko Hanai proved itself well-suited to repeat viewings.

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

Hatsujô kateikyôshi: sensei no aijiru (IMDB)

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

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

Most enduring exclamation: Noam Chomsky!

Unexpected sexual advice: The Bush Technique

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.

The Four of the Apocalypse

Mysteries abound. Who are the Four? What happened to the Apocalypse? Why did I rent this?

Fulci's spaghetti western is a confused, meandering film about four misfits (a gambler, a drunk, a whore, and a retard) who flee a violent western town and strike out across the desert. They meet some quakers, a peyote-loving psychopath, a town of (only) men, and all sorts of other Jodorowskyesque elements. Pretty much everyone dies, albeit not apocalyptically. And there's a standout urine scene.

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

I Quattro dell'apocalisse (IMDB)

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

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

Hollywood Shuffle

Robert Townsend drives right to the heart of the modern dilemma: How does one succeed as a black actor in Hollywood without playing any stereotypical, derogatory roles? Answer: work for the Post Office!

A send-up of 80s Hollywood that for obvious reasons is a bit hit-or-miss to watch now. Worth watching for the Movie Biz thread, but try to avert your eyes during the Bat Boy scenes.

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

Hollywood Shuffle (IMDB)

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

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

Imprint

Billy Drago returns to 19th-century Japan to find the woman that he loved and abandoned years before. He has tracked her down to an island inhabited only by demons and whores, where a disfigured prostitute explains to him the (naturally horrific) fate that befell her.

This is everything you want in a Takashi Miike film. The acting is very, very poor. The torture is very, very good. The ending is very, very odd. Maestro!

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

Masters of Horror: Imprint (IMDB)

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

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

Line that sticks with you: "Do I have your attention now, mister?"

Position on the Audition-Needle-O-Meter: Off the scale.

I Stand Alone

The touching story of the budding relationship between a man and his gun.

A butcher finds himself alone in the world after his release from prison. He tries to make a new start in life, moving in with his pregnant mistress and her mother, but cannot silence the inner voice that fuels his hostility. He returns to Paris to search for work and his daughter, and finds himself alone and desperate in an hourly-rate hotel room.

Despite its reputation for extremity and the danger-danger "You have 30 seconds to leave the theater" warning, there is nothing truly shocking in this film -- as a viewer, you can see it all coming well in advance (except for Pachebel's Canon, introduced at an entirely unexpected moment).

Gritty, misanthropic, a muttering curse of a movie that sets itself against all that is good, nice, and complacent. Highly recommended.

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

Seul contre tous (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 : [***__]

Jigoku

Two students hit-and-run a drunken yakuza on a back road in the middle of the night, leaving him dead and his mother and wife out for revenge. The students immediately become a good/bad angel pair; the good one tries to fix things but only finds himself with more and more blood on his hands, while the bad one delights in thwarting the attempts of the good one to redeem himself.

Eventually everyone dies and they end up in hell, where they witness and endure the tortures of the damned.

There's really not much more to say than that. The Hell sequences are surreal and gory enough for the time, but will not prove terribly striking to a modern audience. The demonic bad student, however, is fun to watch.

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

Jigoku (IMDB)

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

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

Pervert!

Finally, a movie about Sex! Death! Freedom (and who wouldn't love Freedom, as depicted here)! Or, according to the warning at the start of the film, Huge boobs, Sex, Blood, and a Snake.

Imagine a whodunnit written and produced by The Man Show and you've got this movie. Women keep getting murdered on lecherous old Hezekiah's ranch, overly penetrated by a misogynistic penis. But whose? Hezekiah's? His cursed son James'? The Coyote's?

Fun movie that shows just how much you can do with a lot (and I mean a LOT) of gratuitous breast shots.

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

Pervert! (IMDB)

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

Beerequisite : [***__]
Pornability : [***__] (+* if you have frat-boy taste in porn)
Obscurity : [**___]
Explicability : [**___]

Best ___ in a movie:
* use of a beehive
* theme song
* dog squeaky toy
* movie rating (H-14)
* montage girl
* opening credits


The Wit and Wisdom of Hezekiah:

"If God intended women to drive, He'd have equipped them with common sense instead of tits."

"You wouldn't know a real woman if one gave you a hand job in the back of an ice cream truck."

"I'm like french bread: the longer I'm around, the harder I get."

The District

From out of nowhere comes this animated piece of Eurosleaze: a Hungarian interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, with (to paraphrase Troma) all of the time travel, nukes, and streetwalkers that Shakespeare would have wanted.

The Montagues are gypsies and the Capulets are pimps. Lecherous grandfather Montague tells Romeo the secret of life: Money cures all ill. Romeo takes this to heart, and concocts a scheme to travel back in time, kill a bunch of dinosaurs, dig the up in the present, upset the global oil market, and get nuked by George Bush. Somewhere in there, he is supposed to get the girl.

As tragic in its own way as the original, propelled by Hungarian rap (with surprisingly entertaining translations), this gem is entirely inventive and entertaining. The Hungarians have figured out a truth that escaped even The Bard: the best way to resolve a feud between two stubborn men is for them to fight on the same side in a street brawl against the cops and get drunk afterwards.

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

Nyócker! (IMDB)

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

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

Electrical Girl

An opening scene of a girl masturbating with a flickering lightbulb, then refusing to use a flourescent because it is "too long". No kidding, you say this is a pink film?

Jan is a woman who has long been afflicted by a strange curse: her mouth and genitals emit an electric shock strong enough to kill a man, or at least injure his sensitive areas. What follows is an absurdist soft-core as she encounters a rubber-clad doctor willing to attempt a cure, an obese yakuza obsessed by her, and her pined-for impotent manager.

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

Faat din chiu giu wa (IMDB)

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

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

Diva

A postman makes a bootleg recording of an opera singer, steals her dress (I'd assumed to masturbate onto, and I wasn't far off), gets mixed up with a white slavery ring, and is pursued through Paris by a Taiwanese record label and a Carribean crime syndicate. Throw in a moped chase through the Metro and an underaged asian gal for good measure, and you end up with quite a good film.

There's a lot to like about this one : a throwing awl (a nice complement to Master of the Flying Guillotine's Indian throwing owl), a cat named Ayatollha, the Zen of toast. As the pace picks up, so does the cinematography, and towards the end of the film there are some very beautiful shots.


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

Diva (IMDB)

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

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

The Warped Ones

What's Japanese for A Clockwork Orange? Kyonetsu no kisetsu! This movie plays out like the first act of Clockwork, with Akira and his pals plucking motorcars from the trees, taking pretty Polly, and all that -- all to a cool jazz soundtrack. There's some manner of a plot involving Akira raping a girl and her falling in love with him, and Masaru moving into big-time gangsterdom, though these seem inconsequential even as they unfold.

The real joy of this film is watching Tamio Kawaji sneer his way through society, insolent and barbaric without an ounce of respect in his body. It is truly a wonder to watch: the simple act of eating a fruit or reading a newspaper becomes a vehement rejection of society.

A truly worthy member of the proto-punk canon.

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

Kyonetsu no kisetsu (IMDB)

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

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

Most over-the-top 'holy crap!' moment: The chicken. Saying any more would ruin it.

Biggest gasp from the well-off audience in the UES theater I saw this at: Yuki pleading with Akira to defile her fiance in the same way that he had defiled her, apparently so they would have something in common.

Best unintentionally humorous cross-cultural scene: The Japanese patrons of the Jazz club bopping their heads to the crazy beat.

Best unintentionally homoerotic scene: Akira and Gill going for a swim. What the hell did these guys think they were filming?