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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Mandolorian and Grogu. I have seen all the Star Wars movies on the big screen, why stop now. Also, The Mandolorian TV series is one of the few movies or TV shows that Disney has done right. The movie is essentially an expanded version of a TV episode with a bigger budget. Jabba the Hutt's son plays a prominent part and is portrayed in a much different way than what we have seen from the Hutts in the past. Fortunately there are lighter moments between the fights and special effects scenes that help establish the relationships of the various characters. Interesting soundtrack, lots of synthesizers giving it an Eighties feel.
Overall, not bad but I doubt its appeal will extend beyond hard core fans of Star Wars and/or The Mandolorian.
I don't think I wil re-watch the entire run but I was considering watching key episodes. If there are any that really impress you during your re-watch let me know.
I'm only half paying attention; it's Tracy who wants to re-watch the show before we go to see the movie. I liked the show the first time through, but I really have no desire to see it again, at least not this soon. (Maybe after seeing the new movie I would have been in the mood.) It's really not doing much for me the second time through; I just want it to be over.
Christiane F. (1981): influential indie German film based on recordings made of a teen drug addicts/sex-trade worker, and the subsequent book studying teen drug addicts (Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. aka Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo). It's gripping, disturbing, and demonstrates just how bleak a path this becomes. It also features David Bowie. The subject of the book was a huge fan. Bowie liked the project, and both licensed his music for use in the film and appeared briefly in the film as himself, at a crucial scene that takes place at a Bowie concert. It's not for all tastes (really don't see this if the realities of injecting drugs disturb you), and the underage actors occasionally do scenes that they probably shouldn't have been asked to do, but it is a minor masterpiece, and the template for a lot of later, less impressive, "teens gone bad" films.
A more recent mini-series exists, but I doubt I'll see it. The thumbnails and previews show glamorized, Euphoric twenty-somethings playing fourteen-year-olds in a stylized world that looks half 70s, half present-day, and far too glitzy and attractive for a story about hard drug use.
Prophet of Ecstasy (2026): feature-length doc on how an ex-seminarian, a new age "psychic" with sinus congestion, a brilliant chemist, and a handful of other oddballs nicknamed and mainstreamed MDMA. Among other side-notes: an account of how Manuel Noriega broke down on e and relived his childhood trauma of being bullied by other kids, and an explanation of how the doctor-directed therapeutic use of MDMA was temporarily scuppered because researchers consulted by the US gov't confused 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine with methamphetamine.
I saw this when it first came out and a couple of times since then. It still holds up.
From IMDB trivia:
“The first scene Clint Eastwood shot was his former director Don Siegel's cameo as Murph the bartender. As a joke, Eastwood made Siegel do eleven takes, then told the cameraman to put the film in the camera.”
This was Eastwood’s first directorial effort and Don Siegel’s first turn at acting. Eastwood quipped that he wanted someone on the set who was more nervous than him. Eastwood completed the film ahead of schedule and under budget.
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Mandolorian and Grogu. I have seen all the Star Wars movies on the big screen, why stop now. Also, The Mandolorian TV series is one of the few movies or TV shows that Disney has done right. The movie is essentially an expanded version of a TV episode with a bigger budget. Jabba the Hutt's son plays a prominent part and is portrayed in a much different way than what we have seen from the Hutts in the past. Fortunately there are lighter moments between the fights and special effects scenes that help establish the relationships of the various characters. Interesting soundtrack, lots of synthesizers giving it an Eighties feel.
Overall, not bad but I doubt its appeal will extend beyond hard core fans of Star Wars and/or The Mandolorian.
Tracy wants to see that movie. First, though, we are re-watching the TV series. Last night we watched the first episode of season two.
I don't think I wil re-watch the entire run but I was considering watching key episodes. If there are any that really impress you during your re-watch let me know.
I'm only half paying attention; it's Tracy who wants to re-watch the show before we go to see the movie. I liked the show the first time through, but I really have no desire to see it again, at least not this soon. (Maybe after seeing the new movie I would have been in the mood.) It's really not doing much for me the second time through; I just want it to be over.
Christiane F. (1981): influential indie German film based on recordings made of a teen drug addicts/sex-trade worker, and the subsequent book studying teen drug addicts (Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. aka Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo). It's gripping, disturbing, and demonstrates just how bleak a path this becomes. It also features David Bowie. The subject of the book was a huge fan. Bowie liked the project, and both licensed his music for use in the film and appeared briefly in the film as himself, at a crucial scene that takes place at a Bowie concert. It's not for all tastes (really don't see this if the realities of injecting drugs disturb you), and the underage actors occasionally do scenes that they probably shouldn't have been asked to do, but it is a minor masterpiece, and the template for a lot of later, less impressive, "teens gone bad" films.
A more recent mini-series exists, but I doubt I'll see it. The thumbnails and previews show glamorized, Euphoric twenty-somethings playing fourteen-year-olds in a stylized world that looks half 70s, half present-day, and far too glitzy and attractive for a story about hard drug use.
twenty-somethings playing fourteen-year-olds
I'm reminded of an old MST3K line: "Everyone was forty back then."
I understand the reasons they do this, but this story really doesn't work if kids aren't playing kids.
The jet in the movie Top Gun was too dangerous to live.
The US Navy retired the F-14 Tomcat - then ordered every remaining ...
Prophet of Ecstasy (2026): feature-length doc on how an ex-seminarian, a new age "psychic" with sinus congestion, a brilliant chemist, and a handful of other oddballs nicknamed and mainstreamed MDMA. Among other side-notes: an account of how Manuel Noriega broke down on e and relived his childhood trauma of being bullied by other kids, and an explanation of how the doctor-directed therapeutic use of MDMA was temporarily scuppered because researchers consulted by the US gov't confused 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine with methamphetamine.
Play Misty for Me (1971)
“Ardent fan stalks a late-night disc jockey.”
I saw this when it first came out and a couple of times since then. It still holds up.
From IMDB trivia:
“The first scene Clint Eastwood shot was his former director Don Siegel's cameo as Murph the bartender. As a joke, Eastwood made Siegel do eleven takes, then told the cameraman to put the film in the camera.”
This was Eastwood’s first directorial effort and Don Siegel’s first turn at acting. Eastwood quipped that he wanted someone on the set who was more nervous than him. Eastwood completed the film ahead of schedule and under budget.
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