Movies

[Ap2000]

I'm just watching an interesting documentary called "Operation Hollywood", about how the US government is influencing movies and TV shows to show them and their subsidies in a positive light:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPZL5WTilRE

Unfortunately, the German version is about 30 minutes longer, but I don't know what got cut.

[Zaeleus]

After three years in the making, crowdfunded movie Kung Fury was (finally) released yesterday.


The plot revolves around ex-cop Kung Fury traveling back in time to kill Adolf Hitler. It's over the top ridiculous, but from absurdity comes hilarity.


official website: Kung Fury

trailer: KUNG FURY Official Trailer [HD]

watch on YouTube: KUNG FURY Official Movie [HD]

music video: David Hasselhoff - True Survivor (from Kung Fury)

[Ap2000]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Zaeleus" data-cid="188378" data-time="1432906822">After three years in the making, crowdfunded movie Kung Fury was (finally) released yesterday.

The plot revolves around ex-cop Kung Fury traveling back in time to kill Adolf Hitler. It's over the top ridiculous, but from absurdity comes hilarity.

official website: Kung Fury
trailer: KUNG FURY Official Trailer %5BHD%5D
watch on YouTube: KUNG FURY Official Movie %5BHD%5D
music video: David Hasselhoff - True Survivor (from Kung Fury)</blockquote>
Thanks for reminding me!
I'm happy they released it for free on YouTube, that's really cool of them.

[Shoujo Q]

I just watched it. Kudos to them for getting the Hoff involved. xD

[Ap2000]

Mad Max Fury Road is probably the best action movie I've seen since The Matrix.

[Shoujo Q]

Mad Max was amazing. I just saw Jurassic World. Nice nods to the old series, but I have no idea how they plan on fleshing this out into a series of films. I like to think the plot of the movie kind of relates to the state of old movies and squeals or remakes that just shouldn't need to happen. 
 
Anyway. Saw a trailer for The Martian. I'm gonna need to read the book now. My great weakness is real life sci-fi movies that could actually happen and that involve NASA in some way. 
 
You don't even KNOW how much I miss the Uchuu Kyoudai (Space Brothers) anime series. The manga is good, but it's hard to find sometimes. :\ I've yet to see the movie, though I finally found it subbed.Gonna try and watch it this week at some point.

[Madara]

I did a piece on Yoshiko Kawashima on my film blog.
 
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/
 
She was a Manchu princess and cousin of Pu Yi, the famous "Last Emperor" of China, and she worked for the Japanese in China during the war, in a range of activities that got her executed for treason by the Chinese after the war. She was famous for wearing men's suits and military uniforms and leading quite a wild life in public. I read a new biography of her and then I watched four films about her and wrote about each of them:

 
LADY KARATE:

 
THE LAST EMPEROR:

 
THE RAID:

 
THE LAST PRINCESS OF MANCHURIA:

[showraniy]

Very nice, Madara. She sounds very familiar, and I think I have a book on her somewhere that I haven't read yet, so I may just make time for it soon.

[Madara]

On my film blog I look at and compare three Japanese monster movies featuring Mothra, the giant caterpillar-turned-butterfly, and its twin fairy guardians:
 
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/more-kaiju-poetry-mothra-in-1961-1992-and-1996/
 

 
And the fairies in each of the films:
 

 

 

 
That's the famous 1960s pop duo, the Peanuts, in the first pic.
 

[Ap2000]

I saw part of some more recent (year 2000+) Godzilla movie and they also have a small fairy-like duo in it.
The movie ended with them being on top of some kaiju's back and sailing into the sunset.
 
I am aware this is an atrociously vague description...

[Madara]

On my film blog I'm participating in the 1947 Blogathon this week and one of the films I chose to write about is Akira Kurosawa's ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY about a young couple, struggling to get out of poverty, who spend their one free day of the week together and find themselves hampered by a lack of money. It's a remarkable portrait of everyday life in Tokyo of that year, a metropolis struggling to recover from the ravages of war and allied bombing and the humiliation of defeat and occupation by the enemy. It shows the resilience of the Japanese people in a way that I found quite moving.
 
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/1947-blogathon-postwar-hope-and-despair-one-wonderful-sunday-and-violence/
 

[al kusanagi]

Ant-Man was far more entertaining than it had any right to be, and was quite funny. Still would have liked to have seen Edgar Wright's take on it, but i enjoyed it.

[Ap2000]

wat.jpg

[aine]

The Eternal Zero - the Japanese take on the Kamikaze units and pilots. Bashed by critics for romanticising Kamikaze and being nationalistic and all that. Ironically also by Hayao Miyazaki who came under a similar fire for his <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2013293/">The Wind Rises</a>. Similar to The Wind Rises, I'm also sort of unconvinced by this angle of criticism towards Eternal Zero. It's an entertainment movie first and foremost. Even if it does what it's accused of, you can't have history lessons and apologetic pieces incorporated into each movie with historical pretences. Maybe I'm biased, because for a while now I've been reading a lot about WW2, especially about the Pacific War, so I know the historical background and can tell bullshit when I see it. Maybe the complaint is that young Japanese people who see it without such historical knowledge will get a wrong idea.
 
But then I don't even think it's that heavy on propaganda, other than some obvious and necessary whitewashing. I say necessary, because it's not a History Channel piece, not a documentary, but a piece of entertainment about some positives values at its centre - friendship, loyalty, and all that. In fact the main character is vehemently opposed to war and loss of life in Kamikaze units, and is shown bearing consequences of his attitude at the hands of the Imperial Army.
 
If anything, the main criticism is that it's just a poorly executed movie. There were moments of some really atrocious acting, especially on the part of Kazue Fukiishi (the older sister). The romantic plot was unbelievable soap-opera tier. The CGI and overall production value was a few notches below <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374463/">The Pacific</a> TV series.
 
But it's still interesting to see, if only for a point of view different from the usual that we get in the West. When I first watched <a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096/">Das Boot</a> as a young teenager it was an eye-opener for me - until then from the word of mouth and history lessons I thought of Germans basically as nothing but dehumanized blood-thirsty killing machines. But there they were in the movie, young lads with families, with their loved ones, all scared of dying and wanting to go home. I'm sure Eternal Zero won't become a classic like Das Boot did, but if it does something similar to some young teenager in China for example, then perhaps it's a first step towards the long overdue end of all WW2-related bickering and tensions in that region.

[aine]

Kiki's Delivery Service (the 2014 live-action version) - no long-winded review here. It was all right. It had only a fraction of the charm or Miyazaki's 1989 animation. The plot differed a lot from that of Miyazaki's film too, but the live-action is partly based on a newer Kiki novel which has been written after 1989. That said, I didn't find this new story all that good. It also had some very bad and grating CG, and overall felt like a cheap direct-to-TV production from early 2000's. Fuuka Koshiba (Kiki) is cute as a button and it helps a lot in sitting through it, but she can only do this much to make up for all the other shortcomings. Better watch Miyazaki's film again instead.



<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Ap2000" data-cid="188909" data-time="1434657654">Mad Max Fury Road is probably the best action movie I've seen since The Matrix.</blockquote>
It was mediocre. [tinytext]I'm like 3 months late to making this joke.[/tinytext]

[Ap2000]

Wet hot american summer - First day of camp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLlMTn_Jzok

I am not convinced this is a Netflix show and not just an Adul Swim sketch.

[Madara]

Over the weekend I marked the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender in WWII by watching a film about the surrender, JAPAN'S LONGEST DAY (1967), and then doing a blog entry about it:
 
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/japans-longest-day-1967-epic-drama-of-japans-surrender-in-1945/
 
It's a pretty harrowing film because it dramatizes in stark terms the fanaticism of Japan's military leaders and their determination to sacrifice every last man, woman and child in Japan just so they could die a glorious death. I've never seen another film like it.
 

[Ap2000]

After loving Fury Road so much, I decided to buy the original trilogy on BR.
Last week I watched 1 and Road warrior, today Thunderdome.
 
I feel like they got better with each part, but 2 and 3 have different strengths.

[WonderBuono]

http://youtu.be/2zQMGPHsGag


I don't even have a funny comment for this, just watch. xD

[aine]

SPECTRE is pretty disappointing for the first hour or so, but luckily it gets better later. I feel like some of the meta bits towards the end were almost directly lifted from the Max Payne 1 and 2 games. Lea Seydoux is a cutie too.

It's nowhere near Casino and Skyfall, but I don't think anything can top those in my books. Perhaps that's why I didn't care for the first half of it. It's all right overall. Definitely better than the hot mess that Quantum of Solace was.

Spoiler if you haven't seen Skyfall --> I also didn't like it as much because of the new M. He wasn't as bland as I thought he would be, but it's just not the same now. I feel like an orphan without Judy Dench M.

[Madara]

A Halloween roundup of ghost movies, mostly from Hong Kong and Japan, on my film blog:
 
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/
 
Including the following:
 
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir:

 
Rouge:

 
A Chinese Ghost Story:

 
Kwaidan:

[Ap2000]

I have the original Chinese ghost story movies box set, I really like those movies.
Recently saw the pretty new remake, which was also well done.

[Madara]

I went to see DANCIN' IT'S ON, which stars some kids from Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. It's like a sequel to HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL written and staged by high school kids--in the 1950s! It must be seen to inspire various drinking games.
 

 
The dance scenes are, I'll admit, very enjoyable. This has everything a cult movie like BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO had, so why not?
 
I devoted an entry on my film blog to it:
 
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/the-b-movie-returns-to-theaters-dancin-its-on/
 
Here's the trailer, too. If this doesn't pique your interest, you have no idea what joy is:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w01G6jwqcUc&w=560&h=315
 
The short snippets of dialogue you hear give only a hint of how wooden the line readings are.
 
You can't miss this.
 

[Madara]

More Japanese films on my blog. This time I cover SANSHIRO SUGATA, PARTS 1 & 2, judo-themed films made by Akira Kurosawa during WWII :
 
https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/criterion-blogathon-akira-kurosawas-judo-epic-sanshiro-sugata-1943-and-sanshiro-sugata-part-two-1945/#more-3523
 
I also compare them to an animated version done in 1986:
 

[Ap2000]

Tarantino's new movie, The Hateful Eight, was shot in Ultra Panavision 70 which hasn't been used since 1966. I'd love to see it in a theater that's capable of showing that, but unfortunately it seems they're only doing a roadshow for that version of the movie in the USA.
 
In sadder news, I'm sure at least Madara will be sadened too, Hara Setsuko died.

[aine]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Ap2000" data-cid="193118" data-time="1448557493">In sadder news, I'm sure at least Madara will be sadened too, Hara Setsuko died.</blockquote>
Too sad.

Millennium Actress, a great feature-length anime by Satoshi Kon, was loosely based on her life's story. I have a hunch that it would resonate very well with Madara.

 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Ap2000" data-cid="193118" data-time="1448557493">Tarantino's new movie, The Hateful Eight, was shot in Ultra Panavision 70 which hasn't been used since 1966. I'd love to see it in a theater that's capable of showing that, but unfortunately it seems they're only doing a roadshow for that version of the movie in the USA.</blockquote>
As opposed to other 70mm formats which became commercially successful and mainstream and are being used all the time to film certain scenes or even longer segments (Chritopher Nolan uses it extensively). But then it doesn't have the same ring to it.

Now, if Tarantino shot his new piece on, say, 70mm Kodachrome, then I'd be impressed all right.

A local cinema here can play 70mm and occasionally they will. I watched Alien that way, but the copy looked like it was actually printed in 1979 and heavily used since then so it was a bit underwhelming. And unfortunately I missed their 70mm screening of Interstellar.

[Ap2000]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="aine" data-cid="193119" data-time="1448561607">As opposed to other 70mm formats which became commercially successful and mainstream and are being used all the time to film certain scenes or even longer segments (Chritopher Nolan uses it extensively). But then it doesn't have the same ring to it.</blockquote>
I know IMAX and some other formats are also shot in 70mm (IMAX is 4:3), but from my knowledge they are all just shown as a digital version (2K, 4K etc.) nowadays anyway and not a copy on actual 70mm film.
That's what I meant.

[Madara]

[quote="Ap2000"]
 
In sadder news, I'm sure at least Madara will be sadened too, Hara Setsuko died.
[/quote]
 
 
[quote="aine"]
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Ap2000" data-cid="193118" data-time="1448557493">
In sadder news, I'm sure at least Madara will be sadened too, Hara Setsuko died.
</blockquote>


Too sad.

Millennium Actress, a great feature-length anime by Satoshi Kon, was loosely based on her life's story. I have a hunch that it would resonate very well with Madara.


 


 [/quote]
 
When I interviewed Satoshi Kon, he did indeed acknowledge that MILLENNIUM ACTRESS was partly based on Hara.
http://madara-blog.livejournal.com/58530.html?page=1
 

 
One of the great actresses of Japanese cinema. She was born June 17, 1920. (Nozomi Tsuji was born on her 67th birthday.)  She's best known for starring in several films by Yasujiro Ozu, most notably LATE SPRING and TOKYO STORY.  She was also in a couple of films by Akira Kurosawa. Of the latter I would highly recommend NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH, in which she plays a college president's daughter who marries a student who's also a political radical When the war starts, the radical husband is jailed and Hara goes to live with his ostracized parents and winds up singlehandedly working their farm in some truly amazing and harrowing scenes of physical labor:

 
There's no trickery involved in any of these scenes. She's doing some backbreaking work on camera. Kurosawa devotes a chapter of his memoir to this film. Interestingly, the American censors in Occupied Japan really loved this film.
 
Earlier this year the Japan Society in New York ran a series of films starring Shirley Yamaguchi and Setsuko Hara, including wartime propaganda films that each had made. I went to see all of the wartime films. What a revelation. Yamaguchi, who had a Chinese name when she acted in those films, was almost executed in China after the war because they thought she was a Chinese collaborator with the Japanese and was saved only when she proved she was really Japanese. She eventually repudiated her wartime work and made films all over the world (including Hollywood) and later became a TV journalist, making documentaries in the Middle East. Hara, on the other hand, had been wined and dined by Hitler when she attended the Berlin premiere of one of her films. According to a lecturer at one of these screenings, Hara never repudiated her wartime work and was reported to have held onto her anti-Semitic views long after the war. She never married and retired after 1962 and remained something of a recluse for the rest of her life.
 
Interesting personal story involving one of her films. One year, early in the 21st century, on the last Sunday before Christmas, instead of going out to at least try to Christmas shop, I opted to stay home and watch LATE SPRING. In the film, Hara plays the 25-year-old grown daughter of a college professor and she works as his assistant and is perfectly happy doing so. Her aunt keeps pressuring the father to find a husband for Hara, who has been resistant to the idea. The aunt even finds an eligible young man (whom we never see in the film). Still no go. The father decides to court a local widow with the implication, aimed at his daughter, that he's going to remarry. Only then does the daughter decide to relent. The point is that everyone does what's expected of them, but ultimately no one is happy about it. 
 
As I was watching the film, I kept getting calls from my daughter. She was out Christmas shopping at an area mall and took it upon herself to get gifts for everybody on our list, with the idea that they would be marked as coming from both of us. So she would call up to consult on what to get for people and I was very happy to comply. She wound up doing my work for me! So the experience of watching the film was enhanced by this parallel activity.  
 
Here's an internet discussion I had about NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH about seven years ago:
http://z8.invisionfree.com/MHVF/ar/t9728.htm
 
Here's my post from my Madara blog about Hara and the film, which includes the above Christmas story:
http://madara-blog.livejournal.com/24563.html
 
And a related post from the day before:
http://madara-blog.livejournal.com/24172.html
 
Finally, here's Hara's New York Times obit:
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/arts/television/setsuko-hara-japanese-star-of-films-by-ozu-and-kurosawa-is-dead-at-95.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
 
She apparently died on Sept. 5th, but it wasn't announced till this past Wednesday.
 

[Madara]

I was debating whether to put this in Music Chat Spam or here, but since I'm linking to actual movie clips, I'll put it here.
 
I wanted to alert all of you to the fact that next Saturday, December 12, will mark the centennial of Frank Sinatra, who died in 1998. I'm planning to devote an entry on my film blog to a tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes, as he was affectionately known in the later phases of his career.
 
When I was growing up, Sinatra was like a god to us. In New York, at least, he was way bigger than Elvis Presley and always had been. The Beatles came into our lives, took up our attention and then moved on after a few years, but Sinatra was always there, an icon, a solid anchor of American show biz, and continued to have Top Ten hits throughout the '60s and '70s.
 
I went to see the Rat Pack movie, ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS, as a child 50 years ago, which came out in between the two Beatles movies, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and HELP!, and even then I knew who the real men of music were. Just check out this high-def clip of Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby singing "Style" from this movie:
 
https://youtu.be/89GtOJABVS4
 
I left the theater singing lines from that song.
 
And, even better, here's quintessential Sinatra, singing Cole Porter's "Just One of Those Things" to perfection after getting jilted by Doris Day (another icon) in YOUNG AT HEART (1954):
 
https://youtu.be/ZICFsXjajk8
 
I'll let you know when my blog entry is up.

[showraniy]

I have plans to see Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the next month or two. I know Star Wars isn't out yet, but anyone see Mockingjay to comment on whether it's good or not? I never read the books, so I've gone into each installment blind and been pleasantly surprised, but you never know when they can go downhill.
 
 
[quote="Madara"]
 
According to a lecturer at one of these screenings, Hara never repudiated her wartime work and was reported to have held onto her anti-Semitic views long after the war.
 
[/quote]
 

I never knew she had Anti-Semitic viewpoints, or was involved in propaganda during the war! Interesting stuff.