TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Invasion of the Neptune Men is the biggest film of all time.

you have a gift for watching bad movies.  Or what looks like horribly bad movides, at least. 

Perhaps, but not in this case; it was an MST3K episode.

For those not in the know, Invasion of the Neptune Men is a shitty kid's sci-fi adventure of Japanese, 1960s vintage, in the style of the also MST3K-featured, but more-famous Prince of Space.  So, of course, since it's a movie meant for five year olds, it features actual stock footage of American bombing raids on Japanese cities during World War II, standing in for the destruction caused by the eponymous men from Neptune.  It's more than a little offensive.

[Ideologue]

Alive (1993).  The movie to watch about a South American rugby team crashing in the Andes and mostly dying.  Ethan Hawke stars as the hero who first suggests that they start eating all these dead bodies.  There's some natural reluctance, which is fair enough, but it's like Day 10 before they first start carving up the corpses.  These days, in part thanks to Alive's bold advocacy for not dying pointlessly on a mountain, I have no doubt that a similar situation today would involve eating dead people by the afternoon on Day 1.  In any event, it's a harrowing experience that only 19 survive, but it could be worse: they could have crashed without a suitcase full of cigarettes.

It's actually very good, and much to its and the real people's credit, does not much indulge in political theater writ small as fictional stories of stranded human groups tend to do.  Disagreements do occur, but even though almost all of the survivors are basically kids, there's not one Lord of the Flies scene of raving bullshit to be found.

Did you know that eating human flesh turns you into John Malkovich?  Another reason not to wait another minute.

B+

Incident at Blood Pass (1970).

Toshiro Mifune is old and bored as he takes on his Sanjuro role once more (sort of, but seriously, they're not cashing in on his portrayal of a shoe manufacturer, and they call him "the yojimbo"--indeed, if I'm not mistaken, it's even the same kimono).  Mifune's decline is highlit by what is probably the worst-looking fistfight ever captured on film.  I know Mifune is straight-up 50 by now, but it's called "editing."  Instead of making a theme of it, so that Sanjuro must do what he always has done, namely rely on his wits to defeat superior enemies, but to an even greater degree now that he is aged, this is all pretty much ignored.  He does like, maybe, one clever thing in the movie--and it ain't that clever--and they suggest that he's still the same calibre of swordsman that he was eight years prior.  Yet he's only in one real swordfight, and a very perfunctory one at that.

The plot is initially promising but becomes muddled--Sanjuro is sent by a mystery man to a mountain pass for undisclosed reasons, to wait for "something to happen."  Sanjuro travels to the pass, saving a woman from an abusive husband along the way, stops at an inn with her, and they wait for "things."  They "happen," and, at length, Sanjuro is caught up in a bandit gang's bid to ambush a shogunate gold convoy.  But it's actually Road Warrior, and the convoy is carrying sand--it's all a trap to capture or kill the bandits.

What I really disliked was that, for all they're trying to do to make me think this is Sanjuro, he isn't really the same character.  Sanjuro was a rough-edged instrument of good, a real asshole to be sure but also disgusted by evil, whether they take the form of yakuza or corrupt officials, and he intervened in Yojimbo and Sanjuro, when he totally didn't have to, in order to satisfy his sense of justice.  In this, he comes to respect the murderous bandit leader who attempts to rape the woman Sanjuro saved, and also to murder her and everybody else at the inn.  It turns out the meta-reason for this bizarre turn may be that the bandit is played by an equally famous dude, Shintaro Katsu, best known for his role the eponymous blind swordsman in about one trillion Zatoichi movies.  I assume this is the case, 'cause there ain't no reason given in the movie.  He never fights the bandit chief.

It also features a lot of casual violence to women.  Aside from the (addressed) domestic abuse and (unaddressed) attempted rape, Sanjuro's chief potential ally, the gambler character he meets at the inn (who matters so much he vanishes after being told by Sanjuro to wait outside when he walks blithely into capture by the bandits), leaves his most lasting impression by slapping a woman for being rude to him.  It's all against the same poor lady.  Does Sanjuro care?  Does the movie?  Jesus wept.

I'll grant that the middle is still kinda good, while things are still brewing, you think the reveals will be cool, and you expect pseudo-Sanjuro to be coming up with a brilliant plan.  But it really shits the bed.

D+

[The Brain]

So did the gambler disappear or not?

[Ideologue]

Totally disappeared.  Sorry.

[The Brain]

 

[Ideologue]

John Malkovich probably ate him.

[Savonarola]

Curse of the Cat People (1944)

While this has some of the same cast as Cat People, and makes reference to the initial film, it is only tangentially related.  Instead it's about the inner life of an imaginative young girl and her conflict with her practical father.  Despite the title it's not at all a horror film, and there aren't even any cat people in it.  The studio had an unrelated story and tried to cash in on the popularity of Cat People.

It's not a bad movie in spite of that, but it must have been a colossal disappointment to people who were expecting a horror movie and got a charming family drama instead.

(I've got the David Bowie song stuck in my head now.  I've been putting out fire with GAS-O-LEEEEEN!)

[Savonarola]

Man, I dunno, changed my mind about High and Low.  I keep trying to average out the A+ first 65 minutes and the highish B, extremely lowish B+ of the last 80.

Really more of a B+ overall.  It's like two separate movies.

It reminded me of Full Metal Jacket; the director creates an intense, gripping piece in the first part and completely different sort of film in the second.  Not that the second part of either film is bad, but they just don't live up to the first part and don't work together as a single piece.

[Josephus]

First part of FMJ was really good. Second part was somewhat disjointed. Was kind of cool to see Vietnam fought in an urban environment, as opposed to the usual jungle scenes, but yeah, doesn't hold up to the first half.

[Ed Anger]

I don't even bother after private Pyle airs out his brains with a M-14.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I felt the same way about Sleepers.  After the first part the second was almost irrelevant.

[fhdz]

4 episodes in on The Bridge; I'm hooked now. Good show with the potential to become very good.

[CountDeMoney]

4 episodes in on The Bridge; I'm hooked now. Good show with the potential to become very good.

Oh yeah.  And you can definitely tell which writer from Homeland left to write for Bridge.

[Queequeg]

Sav, that's Malevich right? Or Kandinsky?

[Ideologue]

Man, I dunno, changed my mind about High and Low.  I keep trying to average out the A+ first 65 minutes and the highish B, extremely lowish B+ of the last 80.

Really more of a B+ overall.  It's like two separate movies.

It reminded me of Full Metal Jacket; the director creates an intense, gripping piece in the first part and completely different sort of film in the second.  Not that the second part of either film is bad, but they just don't live up to the first part and don't work together as a single piece.

Man, that's a good comparison.  Jacket sorta shapes back up with the sniper sequence, though; kinda how High and Low does, maybe to a lesser extent, when we (finally) come back to Gondo with all his shit getting repossessed.  Both do have extremely memorable closing shots.