Reign of Assassins 2010 Chao-Bin Su & John Woo

First off, let me just say that this movie is not even really co-directed by John Woo.  He helped out with the fight scenes somewhat, but that's about it.  I had really high expectations for this one, and it was a letdown, but when I found out the truth behind the "co-director" credit, I figured I should cut it a bit more slack.

Remember Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?  Of course you do.  But when people saw that movie they weren't that well versed in kung fu cinema.  Everything in that movie seemed new and fresh.  We heard that it was an updated version of old Chinese kung fu movies, but nobody had really paid that much attention to kung fu movies in a long time.  Now if you watch it, you're much more likely to see the different films it references and appreciate it on that level.



Flaming Sword kung fu is badass

 Reign of Assassins made me appreciate just how good Crouching Tiger was.  It's not that this new one is a bad movie, it's just an okay one.  It borrows heavily (and I do mean heavily) from Crouching Tiger, as well as from John Woo's own Face-Off.  Oh, Kill Bill is in there as well.

You see, there are a group of bandits led by one Wheel King, who are out to get the remains of Bodhi Dharma, an ancient kung fu master.  His remains were split in two, so naturally whoever can find both halves of his corpse can become king of the martial arts world.

Wheel King and his cronies (collectively, they are known as The Dark Stone) find the top half of Bodhi Dharma and kill the father and son who were unlucky enough to have an old corpse in their possession.  In the confusion, a member of the team, the unfortunately named Drizzle, makes off with the body.



"Thank you for your money -sorry I
had to trick you"

 In true Face-Off fashion, Drizzle knows that everyone's coming after her, so she gets a surgeon to modify her face.  Thanks to some poison bugs that like to eat facial bones, Drizzle becomes Michelle Yeoh and begins life as a fabric seller in the streets of the capital.  There she meets a messenger named Ah-Sheng, and the movie stops dead while they begin a relationship and end up married.  John Woo probably took a vacation during this part.

Back to the kung fu.  The Black Stone get off tour and finally find Michelle Yeoh.  This is where the movie gets really good.  There are lots o' references to old Shaw Brothers movies of the late 60's - mid 70's.   I really enjoyed the nods to One-Armed Swordsman and Touch of Zen, I just wish there could have been some one-armed swordsing to go with all the crouching and hiding.  It does get nicely convoluted in an old school chop socky way though, which was also a lot of fun.



Her name is Barbie!  No, really!!!

 In the end, I did like this movie.  Like House of Flying Daggers, I'll probably like it more if I watch it a few more times.  Right now, it's only available as a region 3 import dvd, so if you don't have an all region dvd player, it's too bad for you.  Go get one, or wait for the Weinsteins to release this in a few years.  It'll be dubbed and called something ridiculous like Legend of the Kung Fu Mummy.

Dogtooth 2009 Giorgos Lanthimos

Yes.  Yes, it is.  I'd love to tell you more about this movie, but I just can't.  To know too much about it would ruin the experience.  Don't watch the trailer.  Don't ask your friends.  Rent it, buy it, stream it - it's on Netflix Instant - and experience it for yourself.  I can't recommend it enough.

Enter the Void 2009 Gaspar Noe

I love this poster.  I really do.  Unfortunately, it's the best thing about this movie.  Director Gaspar Noe's previous films, I Stand Alone and Irreversible were shocking and disturbing films about damaged people and the wreckage they caused in the lives of those unfortunate enough to be related to them, or even people unlucky enough to pass them on the street.  This one is something else entirely.

It's a grand statement about life, death, the whole ball of wax.  But it concerns marginalized people, so in that way it fits in with his previous films.  It also looks fantastic.  The problem is that in trying to explain what happens when we die, no one involved in the film thought it would be a good idea to make sure the audience didn't die of boredom.

The entire film is from the perspective of Oscar, a small time drug dealer in Tokyo, who's just been reunited with his long lost sister.  So it's sort of like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield.  Oscar looks in a mirror, and we get to see him, otherwise the whole movie is through his eyes or just behind his head.  That would be fine if Oscar was interesting.  But he's not. 



See?  It looks great, but it's interminable

 Then he dies.

I'm not giving anything away.  The point is to see what happens to our souls when we die.  Oscar's been reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead, so naturally the rest of the movie involves Oscar's spirit reliving his life and floating around Tokyo until he gets reincarnated.  In case you were wondering, he dies 28 minutes in to the movie.

But the movie's 2 hours and 23 minutes long.

Cue lots of swirling camera movements (he's a spirit!) in and out of buildings and around the streets of Tokyo.  Remember in Panic Room how the camera would swoop up and down between the floors of Jodie Foster's house and settle on either her or the crooks trying to get into said room?  It's like that.  Oscar's spirit swoops around and sees that everyone's sad, flashes back on his life, and swoops some more.  His sister is a stripper, so the swooping does sort of become a regular at the club where she works. 

All in all, there's lots of nudity, some nice camerawork, and the sets look fantastic, but it's really nothing more than an old Skinemax movie with delusions of grandeur.  Sorry, but it's true.

Frogs 1972 George McCowan

Well, now I've seen it.  That's about all I can say for this movie.  I always saw it in the bargain DVD racks and used at record stores, but something always kept me from pulling the trigger on picking this up.  Thankfully, Netflix Instant has saved me the indignity of owning this movie, but I still feel a little ashamed that I actually sat through the whole thing.

In case you care, Sam Elliot plays Pickett Smith, nature photographer and all around eco-warrior.  One day while out in his canoe, he's almost run over by two drunken rich folks in their brand new speedboat.  Once they lift him out of the water, they do what any self respecting member of an old money family would do - they invite him home for the weekend to help celebrate their grandfather's birthday.

So far, no frogs.  But here comes Ray Milland, as the cantakerous crippled grandfather who lords over his family, while they all wait for him to die and inherit his money.  Turns out, old Ray has been using whatever he can find - poison, guns, traps - to rid his private island of frogs and other critters.  Captain Planet Sam Elliot tells him this is the wrong way to go, but Milland doesn't want to listen to such hogwash.



See, it's called Frogs.  Not Family Spat.
Frogs!!!

 Pretty suspenseful, huh?

The spoiled family members complain that the frogs (they finally show up) are making too much noise, but mostly they just want to get grandpa's birthday over with.

Up unitl this point, Ray Milland's character kept reminding me of the "Father's Day" episode at the beginning of Creepshow.  Honestly, if he would have once blurted out "Where's my cake, Bedelia?", I could have almost liked this movie.  No such luck.



Yes, she's in the movie.
Too bad this is just a publicity still.



It's at this point that cast members start dying..  Remember that this movie is called Frogs?  Well, no one else seemed to.  The murderous animals -at least the ones doing the heavy lifting - consist of snakes, komodo dragons, salamanders (?), geckos (??), spiders, alligators, and whispering willows (?!?!?!).  The frogs of the title sit back and watch.  Over and over.  Apparently, the frogs are in charge and they demanded top billing for this movie, which would have made more sense if it was titled Reptiles, or even Amphibious Assault.

 And just when you think it should be over, you get one last shocking scene to remind you of just how much fun Creepshow is, and how much of your life you've wasted watching Frogs.  And you'll never get it back.  The choice is yours.

The Aimed School (a.k.a. School In the Crosshairs) 1981 Nobuhiko Obayashi

Hoo Boy.  I have to admit that I've already seen Obayashi's Hausu.  If you haven't seen it, stop reading right now and rent/buy it this instant.  It's a Criterion!  What are you waiting for?  I'll wait....

Watched it?  Good, now we can continue.

The only thing I can compare The Aimed School to is the films of David Lynch and the Coen Brothers.  What I mean to say is, once you've seen a film by them, you know what you're getting into with each successive film.  Now having seen Hausu, The Aimed School won't seem quite so strange as if you had watched the movie cold.

The Aimed School concerns a young girl named Yuka.  She's the top student in her class, manager of the school's kendo team, and beginning a shy courtship with the star kendo athlete, Koji.  Plus, she's telekenetic.  At first, it's fun, you know, helping Koji win kendo matches by freezing his opponents, stopping toddlers from getting run over by dump trucks by turning back time...the usual.  It's when Yuka starts seeing the white haired man in the cape that things start to get weird.

A new girl starts at the school, and instantly the students start becoming

zombie-like fascists, who start taking private lessons at a strange new school and clamp down hard on anything fun, like impromptu dance numbers during gym class.

Can Yuka save her fellow students from the mystery man?  Will Koji win a tournament without psychic help?  Will he ever ask Yuka out on a date?  Is Neptune really that dangerous?   And finally, just how important is P.E. class to a well rounded education?  All these questions and more (much more) will be answered when you watch The Aimed School.