Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s latest horror film represents a major change in at least one respect. Filming in French, with a non-Japanese cast, takes Kurosawa out of his comfort zone, but he demonstrates that his touch with mood and actors remains constant in any language. And in Daguerreotype, Kurosawa avails himself of some of the best talent France has to offer, including Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), Olivier Gourmet (The Son) and Mathieu Amalric (A Christmas Tale, Quantum of Solace). Continue reading
Takashi Miike’s Blade of the Immortal is an adaptation of the long-running (30 volumes) and extremely popular supernatural samurai manga about an immortal ronin named Manji. I never made it past the first volume of the series, but it’s easy to see how difficult a task it was to take the convoluted and drawn-out events of that series and compresses them into a dense two and a half hours. While coherent for those not familiar with the manga (unlike, say the Attack on Titan films), the film is littered with shorthand political machinations and the stubs of characters whose importance is undercut by limited screen time. Despite those limitations, Miike manages to seed striking images and themes into his ultraviolence, turning the source material into a vehicle for his filmic obsessions. Continue reading
Trick ‘R Treat is a interesting recent take on the ’60s and ’80s phenomenon of the horror anthology film with some good points to recommend it. I enjoyed the novelty of an anthology that carefully weaved the threads of its different stories into contemporaneous and occasionally overlapping narratives set on the same night in the same town, and Dylan Baker is always welcome fun (Anna Paquin? Not so much.). Continue reading
I was poking around in Amazon Prime the other day when I came across a movie I’d never heard of, The Rift. Cause for excitement? Not necessarily, low budget underwater monster flicks are not uncommon, and rarely entertaining enough to justify the time. But what caught my eye was one name in the credits – Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon! Continue reading
Based on a manga by enfant terrible Kyoko Okazaki, this collaboration between photographer-turned-director Mika Ninagawa and controversial idol/actress Erica Sawajiri is a fascinating bit of Cronenbergian body horror set in the world of fashion and plastic surgery. Continue reading
The Throne is a perfect example of turgid, by-the-numbers Korean historical drama. This looong story of about a medieval king who infamously locked his son in a rice chest for 8 days until he died is full of weeping and tearful emotion, full of pretty costumes, and utterly lacking in narrative propulsion. Continue reading
I’ve seen a lot of crazy old Turkish genre movies over the years, ranging from the relatively well-crafted and genuinely enjoyable Kilink and Tarkan films to bananas mindbenders like Turkish Superman and 3 Dev Adam, in which Turkish El Santo and Turkish Captain America team up to take out evil Turkish Spiderman. Hell, I’ve sat through the entire Onar Films back catalog put out by Bill Barounis back in the day, and screened unsubtitled bootlegs with live translations from very patient friend-of-CSB Mehmet. So when I say Death Warrior (screened last night at the new Brooklyn Alamo) is the most incoherently gonzo Turkish movie I’ve seen yet, I know of what I speak. Continue reading
Reign of Assassins is one of the best wu xia films of the past decade, marrying old school pleasures with comic book aesthetics and inventive action instead of relying on the grim seriousness mandated by the Hero model. Characterization is often a weak point in the genre but director Su Chao-pin turns it into a strength, casting a combination of reliable warhorses and talented new faces who imbue even minor parts with dignity and depth. Continue reading
A hard-R gender-flipped Bond film pretending it’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Atomic Blonde is one of the clearest cut cases of style over substance I’ve seen in a while. The film – a mess of double agent gobbledygook set in divided Berlin during the fall of the Wall – is nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is. Frankly, Atomic Blonde is not a film that rewards thought – on the contrary, the more thought you give it the worse it comes off. But those momentary pleasures … Charlize Theron’s outfits, the ‘80s grunge and glam set design, and, most especially, the fights … ah, unglaublich! Continue reading
I feel like this movie never really evolved beyond the elevator pitch. “Gene Wilder will play a rabbi who gets into hijinks in the Wild West! And Harrison Ford will play his desperado sidekick! The comedy will write itself!” Unfortunately, it didn’t and the resulting movie is unfunny, formless, and shaggy as hell. Continue reading
