"Accomplishments"
At home: In The Prosecutor, Donnie Yen is a supercop who quits the force after too many gangsters slip through the justice system, and becomes a prosecutor so he can guard that last "gate". Except his first case goes the other way, sending an innocent boy to prison. He won't let it go, and both he and his mentor/second banana (veteran character actor and frequent Yen collaborator Kent Cheng) get into all sorts of trouble, both judicial and violent, trying to set things right and bring the drug cartel responsible to justice. Sometimes cheesy, in a good way, the film definitely has tonal problems - the cartoon villains, moreso than the hi-octane action, are at odds with the procedural style of the court stuff. But it's a Donnie Yen movie, so I expect a high level of action, and boy, do I get it. He gets into a lot more fights than your regular lawyer, and each set piece is dynamic, well-designed, and original. An early "video game POV" sequence made me shudder, but it's thankfully a one-off. The rest is really strong in-camera stuff.
You know the drill - country makes super-soldiers, then wants to destroy those super-soldiers, then the super-soldiers go rogue, except one who becomes Jet Li--I mean, Black Mask. Hm... being on the run from the government doesn't really figure after that, does it? The problem with Black Mask is that it wants to be too many things at once. It's a rather gory action flick, a high-wire Yuen Woo-ping martial arts cop drama, a desaturated Noir, a tribute to Bruce Lee, a near-future sci-fi superhero comic, and a cooky romcom. I'd even call it over-stylish like Daniel Lee is trying to spoof John Woo, resulting in a somewhat confused direction. That said, Jet Li is equal to himself (he sort of plays a version of his serene monk persona) with strong action and a sympathetic dual performance. Karen Mok is, at once, love interest, comedy relief and sidekick, and I think she's real cute in this. Françoise Yip is the action Fatale who feels conflicted going up against her old teacher. Sean Lau is Not-Yet-Commissioner Gordon to Li's superhero. And thought not in as big a role as I wanted it to be, Anthony Wong's is one of the craziest in his career. So I'm not disappointed in the cast, only the haphazard direction.
William Lustig's original Maniac (played by the film's writer Joe Spinelli) is an incredibly textured slasher where you're WITH the killer, and are asked to feel bad for him. After all, he regrets his actions, and rather blames them on the mannequins he prefers as company... or who they represent. The intrigue is really all about slowly uncovering the man's pathology rather than any kind of arcing plot. Narratively, we're just going from kill to kill - enabled by maverick gore make-up artist Tom Savini, on camera to demonstrate his work - until he's hopefully gotten instead of getting. And the aforementioned texture - the gritty autumnal 80s New York locations, the baroque set dressing, the dynamic camera, the off-putting sound design - covers the obvious technical imperfections (confusing editing being the most of it). But imperfect or not, it still has a lot of motive power. And it's Caroline Munro in a Christmas movie, so.
In Lustig's New York, no one is safe, and in his Vigilante, Fred Williamson and his crew are working hard to do what the justice system can't. But will their friend Robert Forster be lured to the group after his family become victims of a violent crime? We've really following two threads here, even if they meet in the middle. Williamson has some cool - if ethically ambivalent - street action, tracking drugs to their source, and that could have been its own movie. Forster's story is where the movie takes no prisoners (the bad guys are unusually evil for a an American flick), and goes out of its way to radicalize the anti-hero. It doesn't initially go where you think it will. Woody Strode puts in a key appearance. Ultimately, despite the the industrial settings, they don't do enough with Forster being a machinist, and when they do, it's almost like a promise for Vigilante 2 (which doesn't exist).
Between Bruce Campbell and Robert Z'Dar, Maniac Cop is an embarrassment of riches in terms of lantern jaws, and I was delighted that the casting was actually on purpose. Plus, cast Bruce Campbell, get a Sam Raimi cameo for free, it seems! William Lustig and Larry Cohen (here on writing and producing) team up for the memorable story of a slasher who dresses like a beat cop and who may therefore be in the NYPD. Cohen's trademark paranoia is on show, but I was surprised at how little gore there was, comparatively. Some very dangerous-looking stunts are more than worthy replacements, mind you. Tom Atkins is the grizzled cop investigating the case and I really like him here. Laurene Landon, on the other hand, is too much of a blubbering screamer for the competence she's both described and shown to have as a police woman who partners with him to get her falsely accused boyfriend off the hook. Fun stuff.
Despite it being ± a month since the first film, Maniac Cop 2 takes place around Christmas, many months after the St-Patrick's Day-set original. Joining its survivors are the always-solid Robert Davi as a cop believably on the edge (that's not a given in cop movies) and Babylon 5's Claudia Christian as a police psychologist. The unkillable Maniac Cop is back, of course, and still intent on revenge for being sold up the river by the NYPD. He's become much more of a monster, but in a way, less of a slasher, mostly using his massive strength to break necks. That's fine, because Larry Cohen pushes the production towards wild, dangerous stunts instead, easily outdoing the first film and, to my delight, most films in this budget bracket... and many costlier pictures, too! A lot of great car stuff, and an eye-popping finale. Cohen gives us a lot of insane twists as well. Not to say Lustig doesn't also better himself - the Christmas setting (which he returns to after 1980's Maniac) makes the New York night absolutely gorgeous. This is his best-looking film, and his most fun.
A touch of voodoo and Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence is well on its way to do a Bride of Maniac Cop riff. Robert Davi is still on the case, but we've lost Claudia Christan to a different doctor (this one an M.D.) called Susan (Caitlin Dulany), and if we're talking about sequel demotions, Ted Raimi is now the journalist played by his brother Sam in the original (I have a problem with neither, haha). Now, the film has a bad reputation, with creative differences forcing Lustig to improvise scenes and padding things out, leading to his taking him name off the film. A bad experience, I get it, but I don't see what the problem is with the finished product. There's an insane Larry Cohen idea behind it, the extra time(?) spent with the victims is time well spent showing they're wretched human beings who deserve their fates, and it all ends in one of the craziest fire gags I've ever seen (and that's taking Maniac Cop 2 into account!). I didn't think it was meandering or padded at all. It's not the movie Lustig wanted to make, but it's a movie I wanted to watch.
In 1971, Roberto Rossellini made an account of Socrates's trial for Italian TV, and as you might expect, it's slow (especially getting TO the trial) and talky. And yet, I couldn't help but be fascinated, both by the portrait of Athenian justice and democracy, and by the famous philosopher's perfect marriage of logic and ethics. What we know of Socrates, we do through his followers (chiefly, Plato), and Rossellini tries to squeeze as much of what is known (or believed to be known) as possible in the span of two hours, resulting in many dialogues and pieces of wisdom, delivered along the path, as if they'd all occurred in the same few days. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that an Italian director would turn an ancient Greek into a prototypical Christ figure, but he does and it works well, showing that wisdom is always a danger to tyranny. My only complaint is with the ominous, almost musique concrète, score, which might be thematically acceptable, but remains, to me, distracting. But a small complaint about an ambitious and intriguing project.
Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard suffers (possibly the right epithet) a translation/update from Andrew Upton in National Theatre Live's 2011 staging starring Zoë Wanamaker as the matriarch of a failing aristocratic family, on the eve of their having to lose the title orchard to pay their mounting debts. I say "suffer" because in the modernization and Britishization of the play, we lose a lot of poetry and get strange moments where a 19th-Century Russian character spouts a modern song lyric for comic effect. I miss the bucket of pickles and probably much of the original's poetry. That said, I still like the play's portrait of a revolutions in action. The aristos doomed by their indolence (but also by their ingrained charity) are being replaced by the moneyed bourgeoisie (well played by Conleth Hill as someone who still has the serf gene in him), just as the proletariat's revolution is just around the corner (in the guise of Mark Bonnar's eternal student). Even the former order is present in the form of former serf who still longs for the old indentured servitude (his fate very much the nail in that particular coffin). It's Chekhov, so it's funny in a witty way, and sad in every other way, no matter what you do to the text, and the acting is strong across the board (Anya coming off as the weakest, while my favorite is James Laurenson as Gaev, the old man no one listens to). Each of these characters is filled with contradictions that are fun to play, and it's where I derive most of my enjoyment.
[1901] The Big Swallow: The first talky, except you can't hear (or read) what's being said. Gulp!
[1902] The Flying Train: Has anyone done an edit with the Simpsons' Monorail song?
[1903] The Infernal Cauldron: Méliès loves his Satanistic stuff, and so do I. Those ghosts are really amazing.
[1904] The Impossible Voyage: The world's first disappointing vacation sequel? With Méliès, I don't think longer is necessarily better, and we wait around much too long for this "Trip to the Sun" to begin.
[1905] The Black Imp: Méliès's cinemagic tricks implemented for slapstick comedy. Talk about musical chairs!
[1906] The Witch: The original French title - La Fée Carabosse ou le poignard fatal, lit. Carabosse the Fairy, or the Fatal Dagger - is much more interesting. Anyway... this one seems to predict the green screen. Oh, and I love the frog and the cockatrice.
[1907] The Bewitched House: By this point, other directors are learning from Méliès, but though some tricks are recognizable, de Chomón comes up with his own - the poltergeist making lunch and the third act are especially delightful - producing a cool little horror film.
[1908] Fantasmagorie: Considered the first animated cartoon, it transcends its primitive experiment. Clever, surreal, and gooey.
[1909] A Corner in Wheat: I can absolutely believe Eisenstein named this D.W. Griffith short an influence on his work, not just because it uses non-linear editing to create a portrait of an industry (Eisenstein would go on to become the gold standard in experimental editing), but also the socially-conscious subject matter. Griffith shows us those that produce, those that buy, and those that profit, in ascending order of wealth, and clearly, things haven't changed very much.
[1910] Frankenstein: Can you tell the story in under 15 minutes? Only if you never really tell the Monster's story and stop when he leaves. I do like the Monster's creation, however (as it isn't beholden or reacting to the Universal film), and the punchline effectively distills the book's main point.
[1911] Dante's Inferno: It's quite an accomplishment, and not just for 1911, to create any part of the Divine Comedy on film. It's like Gustave Doré's engravings for the first book brought to life - even the actor playing Dante looks like he was made up to look like Doré's portrait of the poet - with effects both enchanting and (most likely) terrifying. The Inferno is a real horror show, and there's little story to it - just mean old Dante putting his enemies in Hell, honestly - and I do wish they'd gone ahead and done Purgatorio and Paradiso as well (no one ever does, I get that it's the "coolest", but it's not the most rewarding in terms of the poetry) - however, the ending does work and it's all extremely accurate to the text. There are many versions to choose from, some colorized, with original or translated interstitials, with different scores. I watched the 2023 restoration with a score produced from off-putting foley and processed voices, and it made the film even creepier. The oldest surviving feature length film and it's pretty incredible.
Books: Iron Council is China Miéville's last New Crobuzon book, and boy, it feels like he wants to destroy the world lest he be stuck writing more volumes for the rest of his life. Competing revolutions are brewing in this follow-up to Perdido Street Station and The Scar, in addition to a war with the outside, so anything's possible. Miéville's prose is built of sentences where you'll likely find half a dozen glanced ideas one could build a story around - as usual, it's a dense read - and even the character I would call the hero of the piece - a veteran golem maker - is introduced late and after a couple of other POV characters. Starts out slow-going, starts to pick up steam, and then becomes a freight train. And indeed, it's largely about a rebellious community living on a train, so that fits. Miéville will return to the idea in Railsea later (you can't take the trainspotting out of the boy...), but if New Crobuzon had to end, I'm glad it ended like this, with Miéville's lefty politics motivating the action, while also remaining true to the world and to historical forces.
I've been thinking about re-reading 1984 for a while now, but then remembered Fido Nesti's graphic novel adaptation was in my backlog. Orwell's ever-more prescient dystopian tale (I swear, there are elements that only a few years ago wouldn't have resonated, but do now) is largely internal, and Nesti happily doesn't try to make it a more outward, plainly visual story. His 9-panel grid is filled with narration, and even goes to text pages when Winston is reading the forbidden book, for example, or in the inclusion of the Newspeak appendix (which has been the thing I've most returned to and was glad to see in the adaptation). Indeed, this is as faithful to the book as possible in this medium. The art uses muted colors and cramped panels to create 1984's London, and wilder, more surreal sequences are weird and pregnant with the same malaise. The experience of the novel distilled, but they kept the sediment in the bottle so I really feel like I DID re-read the original.
My aim this year is to read the "season" of the Eighth Doctor Adventures where he's an amnesiac and walking the "slow path" - the equivalent of a Season 7, I guess - so one every couple months. It all starts with Justin Richards's The Burning. The novel has a bit of fun, at the beginning, by toying with the reader as to when the Doctor would appear, a playfulness that also matches the Doctor's own - under-explained, but not in a bad way - lack of self-knowledge. The setting: A 19th-Century mining town. The plot: A mystery surrounding a strange substance found in the mines (to say more would be a spoiler). It's well done and the monster benefits from interesting descriptions. Of note, of course, is the fact that the Doctor is without a companion, and Modern Who has taught us that when he goes it alone, bad things happen to people who would normally survive a story. The "amnesiac Doctor" (potentially THE 8th Doctor trope) is just too distracted to see everything clearly, and without a human ambassador, fails to make himself clear at times, leading to tragedy. The supporting cast is good here, but you have reason to fear for them.
RPGs: Picking up Torg Eternity after the Holidays, with a mission to Uganda and Lake Victoria to steal Nile Empire tech, and... Uganda? Close followers of my movie reviews (or the poor souls subjected to me in person last summer) may remember my bout of shouting "Uganda" at intervals, as per the amazing Ugandan action cheapie "Who Killed Captain Alex?" and the DJ voice talking all over it shouting the same (among other insightful things like "Movie!"). It rewired my brain, man, so I knew this chapter must include a character with the same ironic attitude and vocabulary. It played great, too. Uganda! I also brought back a love interest and two nemeses (plus the son of one of their defeated enemies) and the players got in on the returns, too, playing a card that called a former PC for help with a dangerous robotic sea beast. In the end, the player saved some refugees from marine robots and supervillains, then infiltrated an island stronghold, saved the Mystery Man (girl) thought lost last session, and are about to steal a cool super jet (if it is indeed in that hangar), so pretty action-oriented.
Best bits: The notion of jumping out of a plane holding a chicken by the legs and hoping for the best was floated. The Spider-God shaman finally caught up with the Deadlands Preacher, but just because he exploded in a puff of brown smoke out the back of an airplane doesn't mean he's gone. Hopping over upturned life boats might have been cool, except everybody slipped and fell. The Super-Wrestler stole the robot remote control and swarmed the villain with them - a big air bubble burst out of the lake after his armor was breached. The Great White Hunter villain - the Aztecan Warrior's blood enemy - was finally captured after he surrendered, but his nemesis tried to murder him, so the former PC Rocketeer took off with him to save the Warrior's soul. A card allowed our Realm Runner to retroactively get equipment in his backpack, but the Preacher made the roll, so I put a Bible in there with the C-4, night vision goggles and wire cutters. He used it to read the NPC hero caught in a death trap her last rites (she survived). Some good plans, some not used, for infiltrating the enemy base - in the end, they chose the more explosive options and we cliffhangered on the lab exploding behind them to cover their escape towards the hangar.
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