Saw a Takashi Miike picture called The Great Yokai War. "Yokai" is a Japanese term for monsters from folklore, as opposed to the more familiar kaiju. It's a kids' picture, about a young boy from Tokyo sent out to live in the countryside with his older sister and his intermittently senile grandfather. When a vengeful spirit appears, the boy gets caught up in a war between warring groups of yokai and must find his courage to become the "Kirin Rider", the hero who will set everything to rights. It's not a bad picture - nothing deep, but an amusing story. Some of the yokai are really trippy, Japanese folklore can get pretty "out there", apparently.
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I thought that I'd posted that I'd re-watched Crash-- David Cronenberg's adaptation of the J.G. Ballard novel, and not Paul Haggis's treatise on racism-- on the big screen. A local performance hall attached to the library has been showing films, especially Canadian films. Unfortunately, their license only permitted them to show the R-rated version, and not the full unrated director's cut. I don't much care about missing parts of the film's prolonged sex scenes, but one scene is crucial to the story, and too much of it is missing.
I reposted my twenty+-years-old review of both novel and movie, here. Very much not for all tastes.
Slacker (1990), Richard Linklater first major film, has, in fact, been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and it paved the way for the rest of his career. I would say, having finally seen it, that it presages his career: the good, the bad, and the WTF??? He follows several people around Austin, Texas, never staying with one character for long. Half of them are hipster bohemians. The other half are deranged. Several occupy the Venn Diagram overlap of the two. It's interesting, definitely, and features several scenes that play like drafts of things he does in later films.
I'm not certain how much I liked it, but I did watch it. If you like any of Linklater's films, then you'll probably find this interesting. If you don't, I suspect that you'll find it exemplifies everything that you don't like about them.
Watched Killers from Space (1954), starring Peter Graves as a nuclear scientist abducted by aliens. It's not that bad, but it is kind of cheesy. It would have made a great MST3K episode. The aliens are guys who look like they're doing bad cosplay of the Phantom, only with googly eyes instead of masks. Blink, and you'll miss MSTie fave Coleman Francis in an ucredited role as "Guy Answering Phone at Power Plant".
Oddly enough, I just finished Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956), a 50s SF classic that I was familiar with, but had somehow missed. Scientist who runs the space program from within a water-treatment plant (okay, the treatment plant interior was playing the role of the space-oriented "Project Skyhook") leads the charge against invading aliens. Great if now dated Ray Harryhausen effects, clever use of stock footage to keep the budget down, and cheesy earnestness.
Last Summer (1969): Many films exist by this name. This one, notorious in my childhood, features Richard Thomas, pre-John-Boy, in a somewhat brutal coming-of-age film involving four economically-privileged teens, a rescued seagull, sexual exploration, and sexual assault. No, not of the seagull. I saw the R-rated version; apparently, a more graphic version exists. That version received an X-rating in period America, was rarely shown, and was thought lost until about a decade ago. Based on an Evan Hunter novel, it's an interesting piece of a time, with an unsettling ending that resolves nothing.
Glenn Ford is a guy who went to college after serving in WW2. He is hired as an English teacher in inner-city New York. His wife is four months pregnant after having lost her first baby to a miscarriage. She is played by Anne Francis just before her turn in Forbidden Planet. They tried to make her look dowdy and almost succeeded. Apparently, this is a boys school, and just about everyone is unruly. A few are dangerous. The two most prominent boys are played by Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow, both less than 30, playing 17. Morrow is a gang leader who figures that if he goes to jail maybe they won’t draft him. Jamie Farr (as Jameel Farah) has an understated role as a quiet, smiling boy who may have mental challenges. Richard Deacon has a brief uncredited speaking part. A coworker of mine, Joe Edwards, plays the black youngster whose hair is high up. He has no lines but is very visible in a number of scenes. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch.
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I thought that I'd posted that I'd re-watched Crash-- David Cronenberg's adaptation of the J.G. Ballard novel, and not Paul Haggis's treatise on racism-- on the big screen. A local performance hall attached to the library has been showing films, especially Canadian films. Unfortunately, their license only permitted them to show the R-rated version, and not the full unrated director's cut. I don't much care about missing parts of the film's prolonged sex scenes, but one scene is crucial to the story, and too much of it is missing.
I reposted my twenty+-years-old review of both novel and movie, here. Very much not for all tastes.
I've seen most of Cronenberg's movies, but I don't think I'll seek this one out.
It's not for everyone, no.
Slacker (1990), Richard Linklater first major film, has, in fact, been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and it paved the way for the rest of his career. I would say, having finally seen it, that it presages his career: the good, the bad, and the WTF??? He follows several people around Austin, Texas, never staying with one character for long. Half of them are hipster bohemians. The other half are deranged. Several occupy the Venn Diagram overlap of the two. It's interesting, definitely, and features several scenes that play like drafts of things he does in later films.
I'm not certain how much I liked it, but I did watch it. If you like any of Linklater's films, then you'll probably find this interesting. If you don't, I suspect that you'll find it exemplifies everything that you don't like about them.
Watched Killers from Space (1954), starring Peter Graves as a nuclear scientist abducted by aliens. It's not that bad, but it is kind of cheesy. It would have made a great MST3K episode. The aliens are guys who look like they're doing bad cosplay of the Phantom, only with googly eyes instead of masks. Blink, and you'll miss MSTie fave Coleman Francis in an ucredited role as "Guy Answering Phone at Power Plant".
"What hump?"
Oddly enough, I just finished Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956), a 50s SF classic that I was familiar with, but had somehow missed. Scientist who runs the space program from within a water-treatment plant (okay, the treatment plant interior was playing the role of the space-oriented "Project Skyhook") leads the charge against invading aliens. Great if now dated Ray Harryhausen effects, clever use of stock footage to keep the budget down, and cheesy earnestness.
Last Summer (1969): Many films exist by this name. This one, notorious in my childhood, features Richard Thomas, pre-John-Boy, in a somewhat brutal coming-of-age film involving four economically-privileged teens, a rescued seagull, sexual exploration, and sexual assault. No, not of the seagull. I saw the R-rated version; apparently, a more graphic version exists. That version received an X-rating in period America, was rarely shown, and was thought lost until about a decade ago. Based on an Evan Hunter novel, it's an interesting piece of a time, with an unsettling ending that resolves nothing.
Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Glenn Ford is a guy who went to college after serving in WW2. He is hired as an English teacher in inner-city New York. His wife is four months pregnant after having lost her first baby to a miscarriage. She is played by Anne Francis just before her turn in Forbidden Planet. They tried to make her look dowdy and almost succeeded. Apparently, this is a boys school, and just about everyone is unruly. A few are dangerous. The two most prominent boys are played by Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow, both less than 30, playing 17. Morrow is a gang leader who figures that if he goes to jail maybe they won’t draft him. Jamie Farr (as Jameel Farah) has an understated role as a quiet, smiling boy who may have mental challenges. Richard Deacon has a brief uncredited speaking part. A coworker of mine, Joe Edwards, plays the black youngster whose hair is high up. He has no lines but is very visible in a number of scenes. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch.
I have seen that movie but I remember almost nothing about it (other than that it was good and I liked it). I should probably re-watch it.
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