"Accomplishments"
In theaters: I would have been fine with Gladiator II being just another gladiator story, unconnected to the events of the original, but Ridley Scott's new sword & sandals spectacular is actually set 16 years later, and involves a couple of surviving characters from 2000's Gladiator. That does sort of deflate whatever victory is eked out of the first story, or pushes it back to the end of this one. But without Russell Crowe (Paul Mescal isn't quite on the same level) and Joaquin Phoenix (the decadent twin emperors are rather thinly developed), the film doesn't quite achieve the same heights. What it is, however, is a rousing action picture, with lots of cool fights and Ridley's usual attention to detail. What's changed, mostly, is that now Ridley can use CG animals as part of the action and there are lots. I think the first shot is actually a brilliant adaptation of some of the iconic moments of the first film, and Denzel Washington, in the Oliver Reed role, as it were, is a brilliant villain. I wanted to shout "Are you not entertained?!" at patrons leaving the theater to go to the bathroom, because I was. That's all that was really required here.
At home: They evidently meant for Sonny Chiba to be Japan's answer to Bruce Lee - in The Street Fighter, he has similar moves, similar styling, and similar (if more exaggerated) expressions - but this is a more sombre and sadistic film than any Bruce had made. It seems like Chiba is fighting everyone in this flick, whatever side of the law they are, and ripping their eyes out - or their balls off! - in the process of protecting an heiress (for perhaps not the right reasons). I don't mind the hyperviolence - it's a feature, not a bug - but Japanese exploitation in the 70s usually meant sexual violence as well, and it's entirely unnecessary. The fights are still good. They're cheaply filmed, but dynamic. But if you're a Hong Kong action aficionado, you won't find them that special. Chiba snarls his way through the movie, or else tries to out-grimace Bruce Lee, so he's not half as charismatic as I was led to believe he'd be. If ultimately I pan The Street Fighter, it's really because of Chiba's pathetic sidekick Ratnose, an absolutely horrendous comedy character whose loyalty to the hero is as unjustified as it is irritating. (Watched with English dub, which I expect is the worst possible format, especially in terms of Ratnose's whining.)
The John Wick movies found a way to continue the revenge of its first film, but Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (a lot of Blood, but no Snow), while it starts with a good hook - Yuki is on the run from the authorities for her revenge murders - just doesn't and turns her into an all-purpose revenger. She might as well be Zatoichi. She's soon press-ganged into a spy mission in the home of a sympathetic anarchist, and uses her revenging skills in his cause. I don't dislike the story (the villains use unusual means), but it's a contrived extension of a story that was already finished. Toshiya Fujita is still the director, so Snowblood 2 at least looks LIKE the original. It's gorgeous. Beautiful shots. Saturatec colors and deep pools of black. Unusual framings. Violent action sequences (though far fewer than we need). It's a clunky addition, but the cinematography makes it watchable.
Bobby Suarez's Filipino exploitation flick, The One-Armed Executioner, is late to the game in terms of the one-armed martial arts subgenre (One-Armed Swordsman came in '67), but is kind of on the cusp of the heroic bloodshed genre with its inclusion of some gun fu elements in the lead character's re-training. It's perhaps closer to the western than anything John Woo would make, but either way, it makes for an entertaining revenge picture. Franco Guerrero is an engaging action star despite not always hiding his left arm in his shirt very well (a common problem, everybody's got an odd torso), and the script has fun with its ancillary characters. And then there's the location. You're well used to seeing this kind of movie coming out of Hong Kong or Japan, but not so much the Philippines. The third act in the jungle makes great use of muddy marshlands and involves multiple opponents, weapons, and vehicles. I'm not convinced with the big bad's death though... were they sequel-baiting?
It's probably not a good idea to watch The Relic on a streaming service because the creature feature tries for dark, moody cinematography - which I certainly appreciate - but goes too far and I'm sure goes to total black at the usual bit rates (or however these things are defined). But when even a fancy museum gala is by candlelight, crawling through basements and sewers in search of a South American chimera is probably not going to be lit very well. At least Peter Hyams tried - he's a jobber, but I'm usually entertained - and possibly, this was to show the creature as little as possible, even if he had Stan Winston on creature effects (the gory bodies are still well lit most of the time). The creature is sometimes 90s CGI, but in the darkness, it's not so bad, so there you go. Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore are good enough leads, and despite all the tropes (he's a a superstitious cop, she's the logical scientist!), they don't initiate a romance between them. That's a breath of fresh air in an otherwise pretty standard monster flick.
A Mexican B-movie (though perhaps not in Mexico itself) with some American actors and A-level effects, Demonoid moves at a very quick clip so you never get bored. In terms of the disembodied hand sub-sub-subgenre, it's got amazing creeping hand effects, but the "Devil's Hand" also has a Satanic possession power and it's that hybridization certainly enhances the picture. As does the stuntwork, the big sets, etc. Which is why I doubt Mexico itself would have considered this a B-effort. Samantha Eggar (The Brood, or if you'd rather, recognizable for dozens of guest appearances on 70s and 80s television) is pretty unflappable as the woman who wants to rid her husband of the cursed hand and becomes its next intended victim. Demonoid (surely, that can't have been the original title) takes its horror seriously - its tongue isn't in its cheek whatsoever - and goes for jugular. No one is safe, and the gore is savage. It doesn't reinvent cinema (in fact, it looks like a television production but for its adult content), but you could do a lot worse if looking for a horror quickie.
Given the task of crafting a Jaws rip-off, Joe Dante delivers something a lot more interesting and idiosyncratic: Piranha. There's no doubt this was made by the director of Gremlins when you early on catch sight of stop-motion "little guys" who are about as gratuitous as the movie's flashes of nudity. The Jaws stuff is still there - Dick Miller visually READS as a the Amity Island mayor - but it's everything else that feels amusing and memorable. The worst camp counselor in America. The plumbing-related escape from jail. The comic book-reading little girl who won't go in the water and might just be the hero the movie needs. The crazy finale. The genetically-engineered piranha in the movie sometimes nibble at your bum, sometimes skeletonize you in seconds, and sometimes are smart enough to disassemble your raft with their teeth - whatever the script needs at that point - but that's part of the fun. Piranha doesn't take itself very seriously, and Dante shows early that he can put little kids in danger and not have the audience get angry at him.
I was warned that reading anything about Delirium (AKA Psycho Puppet) before watching would spoil my enjoyment. That made it sound like it was all a dream, or some Tyler Durden situation. It's not. The twists are about "what's really happening" in the plot and I agree it's better to go in cold. Letterboxd's synopsis is finel IMDB's is NOT. So what can *I* say? It's fine to say that this is a cheap cop movie starring people who have few or no other credits, with detectives on the trail of a delirious (see title) serial killer leaving the corpses of some rather imprudent young women in his wake. From there, you're on your own. The twists make the movie. What DOESN'T make the movie is the stilted dialog, sometimes by way of the acting, too often because the editing leaves too much air between lines. The murders are savage (and exploitatively nude, half the time), and the victim's friend who starts playing Nancy Drew (Debi Chaney) is reasonably effective. The flick also has something to say about an issue of the day that I won't mention here - nothing deep, but it motivates the action. They were trying hard and I respect that.
I love Wim Wenders' work, but I reject the question he asks in Room 666. The year in 1982. The place is a hotel room in Cannes. A bunch of attending directors walk into the room and respond to some bullshit doom and gloom, alarmist questions about whether TV and video herald the end of film as an art. 40+ years later, there's just as much crap as there was in the early 80s, but beautiful and innovating work too, and the cinema snobs have the exact same complaints about streaming, digital, amusement park rides, etc. Nominally, this is about what people thought the future of cinema might be, but it's framed as a negative from the onset (or is Wenders trying to provoke an contrarian response?). The film starts to shift when Werner Herzog, my hero, enters the arena. I won't tell you what he does except reject the premise, but in the context of all this, it's a hero moment. He's one of few optimists in the group, along with Spielberg (who people ridicule because he talks about budgets - what exactly did you expect from this quintessential spectacle director? - but he hits on the real threat to art, which is business) and Antonioni, the real prophet of the lot, wisely kept for the end. Now here's a director who knows that there is no end to film, only "film as you curmudgeons have been doing it" (my words, not his) and that one must evolve with the audience and the technology. While he can't imagine the actual advances, he actually does predict the future, and he doesn't see it as bad.
40 years after Room 666, French director Lubna Playoust makes Room 999, asking the same alarmist question about the impending death of cinema. This time, the barbarians at the gates are the internet and streaming rather than television and video, but shouldn't the actual answer be the same? Many directors prophesied doom and gloom 40 years ago, and cinema is still here. There are still some doomsayers in this new lot, but the tone is generally more positive. It may have to do with there being more young directors and directors from countries where film is still thriving and/or developing - they haven't done everything they set out to do yet and can't admit their art form might die before they can - but even an older guy like Cronenberg, whose whole thing is exploring how technology changes humanity, sees only evolution where others see erosion. I agree with him. Film is not a rock, it's alive, and it's an exercise in self-pitying nostalgia to predict its death. It's only the death of the art form as one knows it - prose didn't die when the epistolary novel went out of fashion! Notably, only one person mentions A.I. (and obliquely at that). Make the film just one year later and that's all they'd be talking about. There are some great points made in Room 999, but there's a lot of chaff too. It's too long (twice the length of the original), and it starts to get repetitive after a while. There's also a certain irony in the fact that one of the signs cinema is "dying" is that we keep making sequels, reboots and revivals of old IP, and this is actually that, isn't it?
Controversial? Boris Karloff's best movie is How the Grinch Stole Christmas! He's got such a great voice, it'd be a shame to put Frankenstein in this slot. Or maybe I just relate too well to the Grinch. I, too, hate all the noise and garishness of Christmas, but my heart swells up to three sizes pretty easily too. Whatever the case may be, it's actually fascinating to watch this golden oldie which is recognizably Dr. Seuss' drawings come to life, BUT JUST AS RECOGNIZABLY Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes work. The Grinch-Max relationship is like one of those great, slapstick-happy, cartoon pairings. It's all in the expressions and the MOTION' which is of course what Dr. Seuss couldn't entirely put in the book. Let's end on a question to ponder this Holiday Season: What kind of meat is "roast beast"? Sounds like beef, outwardly looks like turkey, slices like ham... all Who!???? I mean, what do you think Who Hash is made out of?
Books: Ian Marter, in addition to playing Harry Sullivan opposite the Fourth Doctor and passing away way too soon, is known as a good writer. And his posthumous Target novelisation of Doctor Who (and) The Reign of Terror shows that last statement to be true. Very good prose enlivens what on television wasn't the best historical story. This is a serial that shuffles characters in and out of captivity from episode to episode and calls it a plot, and too often takes the leads' agency away, getting them out of trouble through luck and ancillary characters. The twists are almost Dickensian, and if A Tale of Two Cities is part of the source material, that could make sense. You don't feel it in the original serial, but Marter's writing pushes it in that direction. He also improves a few moments, especially when the characters DO have some agency. For all the serial's faults, the Doctor shines thanks to some ace fast talking. I also like how there's no translation circuit in the book and the characters have to switch between French and English, which actually motivates some of the misunderstandings in the original episodes. One of the books in the line that improves the television experience!
If it's not the shortest Target novelisation, Planet of Giants is surely in the running - even WITH Terrence Dicks restoring scenes from when this three-parter was a four-parter (that poor cat). Uncle Terry is known for knocking these out at record speeds, and he does this by sticking to the episodes as aired, or at least as scripted. This one... could have done with embellishments (like Nigel Robinson's The Edge of Destruction), perhaps Ian fighting with a bug or the cat not simply leaving after its cliffhanger. Maybe the return trip through the garden could have been added. That said, the full-sized action feels more relevant and interesting in Dicks' hands, probably because we get more psychology out of the characters. The policeman has a better reason to check out the cabin, and so on. The prose is good, but it never tries to improve on an, at-best, middling serial.
I always find it odd when the Target novelisations change dialog that was already quotable memes back in the day (or were they? we didn't have ready access to every extant serial). I'm thinking of The Aztecs not using "Not one line!", as an example, and Terrence Dicks' Doctor Who and The Dalek Invasion of Earth changes a lot of lines without improving them. I miss "jolly smack bottom", of course, but that one I can understand. Having Susan calling her grandfather "Doctor" as often as she does is out of character, but maybe Dicks is trying to represent the fact she's about to leave the TARDIS (her departure seems better foregrounded in the book). No, the big sin is that he changed the iconic and often since re-used farewell between the two Gallifreyans. In 1977, that might not have been an issue. Today, it's shocking. Otherwise, this is a pacey retelling of the best Dalek story until at least Remembrance, using only a couple of bits from the Peter Cushing film to enliven scenes despite the very Cushing cover.
With the DC Comics Style Guide about to be made available to the public, I read Xum Yukinori's reconstruction (published as a tiny print run for friends and family - I am blessed to count among that number) and yes, "read", even if it is largely art pieces, mostly by the great José Luis García-López (praised be his name), though you also have the Titans by George Peréz, for example. But there are still evocative text pieces that would have told licensees what the proper context of each character is, and perhaps inspired merchandise based on those concepts. Oh, and if you're into legalese, the licensing agreement is also included in full. What's amazing about the style guide is how many pieces you recognize from merch and house ads, but also the wealth of pieces (and especially logos) you've probably NEVER seen. The Superman and Batman families get the most love, but there's also Wonder Woman, Shazam!, members of the Justice League of America and the irrepressibly cute Super Juniors. As an art book, it's gorgeous and has a nice deco feel. As a piece of DC Comics history, it definitely deserves its reprinting and wide distribution. I do wonder if the new book will include all the updates made in the 80s (Xum's includes them up through 1985 only), but hopefully it does.
I can't believe my friend Xum passed away five years ago this December, and really it took me all that time to even start reading Does This Trade Dress Make Me Look Phat? - a collection of his entries for CBR's The Line It Is Drawn (and more) - because I just couldn't face the loss. Well, it's still hard, but there's so much joy and enthusiasm in this 475-page monster, it kind of reads itself. While all the "Line" entries - usually faux comic book covers (Xum was an impressive mimic, especially when it came to recreating/modifying logos) - are presented, with commentary on their crafting and pics of their inspirations, Trade Dress also acts as a kind of memoir covering this era, one that's most precious to me because that's where my life intersected his. Chock-full of Xum's oddball sense of humor, his work is full of deep cuts, silly wordplay, self-insertions and self-effacements, love for his family, respect for his friends, and an obsessive fandom I wasn't aware of for the Green Lantern Animated Series. There's also a full superhero comic written by Neil Southwell and illustrated by Xum which actually makes me long for a second issue, and tributes from other Liners at the back. Obviously, I'm not reviewing this to get you interested - the print run, for friends and family, was quite small - but as a simple statement - I miss him - and as a way to thank his archivists, Isamu and Adrian, who published this dream posthumously.
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