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.

Views: 63339

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Saw The Twelve Monkeys yesterday. I thought it was pretty good. I hadn't known that Frank Gorshin was in that picture.
The Baron said:
Saw The Twelve Monkeys yesterday. I thought it was pretty good. I hadn't known that Frank Gorshin was in that picture.

12 Monkeys is an awesome movie! I love it!
Just saw Saints and Soldiers. Another good movie. Although I am partial to WWII movies, this one bordered on being a spiritual movie like Facing the Giants. Good action scenes, also.
Finally saw The Incredible Hulk. I liked it better than Ang Lee's Hulk. I loved the Tony Stark cameo at the end. Nice way to show the movies are all in the same "Universe."

I saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Decent. Not sure if I like the way he lost his memory, though. Kind of lame. Definitely don't like what they did to Deadpool at the end. Other than those two things it was an all right movie.
Saw High Plains Drifter for the first time this weekend. That was a great movie.
I recently picked up a copy of the 1931 Fritz Lang film, M. Without giving too much away, it features a young Peter Lorre as a serial killer who terrorizes a German town when he begins murdering small children. (That's not a spoiler, by the by, his identity as the killer is revealed to the audience very early in the picture.) The suspense in the picture derives from the massive manhunt as the police desperately try to uncover and capture him. The police crackdown disrupts the criminal element so much that the local syndicate launches their own hunt for the killer, and Lang makes good use of showing the comparison and contrast between the "legitimate" and "illegitimate" segments of society. This was apparently, Lang's first sound picture, but you'd never've known it, he uses sound very well.

Lorre is unbelievable in this picture. It occurred to me me while watching that I've more imitations of Lorre, than I have films with him in them. But this picture by itself would establish him as a top-level actor. You really believe in Lorre's character as someone capable of doing unspeakable things. There's next to know overt violence in the picture, but Lang uses suggestion so well that you shudder watching this film. The cover copy describes this picture as the seminal psychological thriller movie, and I can believe it.

The picture is in German with subtitles - I mention that only because I know a number of people that can deal with subtitles.

Also, there's at least three guys in this picture who sort of vaguely remind me of Kenneth MacDonald, the guy who was always playing the Three Stooges' crooked lawyer. Must've been a common look back then - I keep waiting for someone to say, "The estate of Uncle Ambrose Rose - and we thank you."

Anyway, I heartily recommend this picture - both as an "historical document", and as a very interesting movie to watch.
"Angel. Strangers in the house."
The Baron said:
I recently picked up a copy of the 1931 Fritz Lang film, M. Without giving too much away, it features a young Peter Lorre as a serial killer who terrorizes a German town when he begins murdering small children. (That's not a spoiler, by the by, his identity as the killer is revealed to the audience very early in the picture.) The suspense in the picture derives from the massive manhunt as the police desperately try to uncover and capture him. The police crackdown disrupts the criminal element so much that the local syndicate launches their own hunt for the killer, and Lang makes good use of showing the comparison and contrast between the "legitimate" and "illegitimate" segments of society. This was apparently, Lang's first sound picture, but you'd never've known it, he uses sound very well.

Lorre is unbelievable in this picture. It occurred to me me while watching that I've more imitations of Lorre, than I have films with him in them. But this picture by itself would establish him as a top-level actor. You really believe in Lorre's character as someone capable of doing unspeakable things. There's next to know overt violence in the picture, but Lang uses suggestion so well that you shudder watching this film. The cover copy describes this picture as the seminal psychological thriller movie, and I can believe it.

The picture is in German with subtitles - I mention that only because I know a number of people that can deal with subtitles.

Also, there's at least three guys in this picture who sort of vaguely remind me of Kenneth MacDonald, the guy who was always playing the Three Stooges' crooked lawyer. Must've been a common look back then - I keep waiting for someone to say, "The estate of Uncle Ambrose Rose - and we thank you."

Anyway, I heartily recommend this picture - both as an "historical document", and as a very interesting movie to watch.

Its a total classic. That scene with the mother setting the table for her little girl is just terrible! I'm affected just thinking about it sitting here.

Those guys knew what they were doing.

I pointed out recently that Morrison stole the set-up of this movie as the back-story for his Batman 'Gothic' story. The idea of the gangsters tracking down the serial killer out of nessecity rather than any moral reasons.

And it ends in that weird moral-philosophical debate. The equivalence of the gangsters' society and so-called civilised society.

They don't make em like that anymore.
Jason Marconnet (Lime_Coke) said:
Saw High Plains Drifter for the first time this weekend. That was a great movie.

You can never go wrong with Clint

WELCOME TO HELL - indeed!
We watched Danny Boyle's "Millions" yesterday. It's his all-ages, holiday film, but it's still Danny Boyle...so it's pretty brilliant.
Doc Beechler said:
We watched Danny Boyle's "Millions" yesterday. It's his all-ages, holiday film, but it's still Danny Boyle...so it's pretty brilliant.

Y'know... I don't know as I knew that was Danny Boyle. I've been meaning to see that film...
I know the common thought is he was a ghost. Watching the movie I had no idea it was a revenge movie. I'm still undecided if it was the ghost of the marshal or if it was actually the marshal himself. He could have survived gone off in the wilderness changed his life and come back to the town for revenge. Either way it's a great movie.

Henry R. Kujawa said:
"Saw High Plains Drifter for the first time this weekend. That was a great movie."

With your having just seen it for the 1st time... I'd like to hear your (ahem) "interpretation" of what went on in it.

:)

"I never did know your name."
"YES, you do..."
I just watched Zero Effect. It's a quirky little mystery film from the late 90s starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller. While it drug at times it was a pretty entertaining film with some good performances by Pullman and Stiller.

Reply to Discussion

RSS

Groups

Latest Activity

ClarkKent_DC replied to ClarkKent_DC's discussion CBR.com cuts editor-in-chief, senior news editor, feature editor
"As you know, I was a contributing writer for CBR.com for about five years. I had been recently cut…"
18 minutes ago
Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) replied to Captain Comics's discussion Some weird stuff at Diamond (which is not unexpected)
"I expect BOOM and Dynamite pay for the privilege (possibly in the print product). Marvel probably…"
52 minutes ago
Richard Willis replied to Steve W's discussion A Cover a Day
"There would be a lot of Thor-Rainbow Bridge covers. Tomb of Dracula #44 from 1976"
4 hours ago
Peter Wrexham replied to Peter Wrexham's discussion A Cover A Day: Nominations, Themes and Statistics
"Add "Pride covers, intended and accidental" to the list of possible themes, maybe next…"
4 hours ago
Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) replied to Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)'s discussion DC's Digital Backlist - Secret Society of Super Villains spotlight!
"Yep, it's the original Warlord series. I think we'll be getting the first 12 issues, as…"
4 hours ago
Jeff of Earth-J replied to Steve W's discussion A Cover a Day
"Here are a few..."
4 hours ago
JD DeLuzio replied to Steve W's discussion A Cover a Day
"Hey, could that be a theme next June? Pride covers, intended and accidental? Tomb of Dracula #44…"
5 hours ago
The Baron replied to Jeff of Earth-J's discussion Post-Crisis Superman
"Why, you on a schedule? "
6 hours ago
Irma Kruhl replied to Steve W's discussion A Cover a Day
"Tomb of Dracula #44 from 1976"
6 hours ago
Jeff of Earth-J replied to Jeff of Earth-J's discussion Post-Crisis Superman
"I have been feeling the need to pick up the pace of this discussion. The means to that end is to…"
7 hours ago
Jeff of Earth-J replied to Cavaliere (moderator emeritus)'s discussion What are you watching right now?
""A Quality of Mercy" (the last episode of the first season of Star Trek: Strange New…"
9 hours ago
Lee Houston, Junior replied to Steve W's discussion A Cover a Day
"Since Phillip mentioned her on the previous page during his Mary Marvel reference... (Image…"
10 hours ago

© 2023   Captain Comics, board content ©2013 Andrew Smith   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service