Posts Tagged ‘Action’


Garo

December 10th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 2005 – 2006   Runtime: 25′ (25 ep.)   Directors: Keia Amemiya, Makoto Yokoyama, Kengo Kaji
Writer: Yuji Kobayashi   Music: Shinji Kinoshita, Koichi Ota
Cast: Hiroki Konishi, Mika Hijii, Ray Fujita, Masaki Kyomoto

A secret war is raging (at least in Japan). Creatures from the Underworld known as Horrors regularly creep through the cracks between dimensions to possess humans whose darkest impulses accommodate the character of the respective horror and use them to commit various atrocities. Fortunately, humankind is protected by the Makai Knights, warriors of mystical bloodlines who are able to use a magical metal known as soul metal. When need be, a Makai Knight can conjure up full body armour made from the material, but (because that’s how it goes in tokusatsu shows) they can’t stand being clad in the magical armour for long.

Garo follows the attempts of the perma-scowling Golden Knight Kouga Saezima aka Golden Fang aka Garo (Hiroki Konishi, now called Ryosei Konishi to confuse everyone as much as possible) to keep his territory (which might be the Eastern half of Japan or of Tokyo) safe from the Horrors.

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A Quartet of Corman Classics from Shout! Factory

December 8th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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Big Bad Mama / Big Bad Mama II
Year: 1974 / 1987   Company: New World / Concorde   Runtime: 84′ / 83′
Director: Steve Carver / Jim Wynorski   Cinematography: Bruce Logan / Robert C. New
Writers: William Norton, Frances Doel / R.J. Robertson, Jim Winorski
Cast: Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, Susan Sennett, Robbie Lee, Noble Willingham
Angie Dickinson, Robert Culp, Danielle Brisebois, Julie McCulloch, Bruce Glover, Ebbe Roe Smith
Crazy Mama / The Lady in Red
Year: 1975 / 1979   Company: New World Pictures   Runtime: 80′ / 93′
Director: Jonathan Demme / Lewis Teague   Cinematography: Bruce Logan / Daniel LaCambre
Writers: Frances Doel, Robert Thom / John Sayles
Cast: Cloris Leachman, Stuart Whitman, Ann Sothern, Linda Purl, Jim Backus, Tisha Sterling
Pamela Sue Martin, Robert Conrad, Louise Fletcher, Christopher Lloyd, Robert Forster
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: Progressive, 1.78:1 (16:9)    Audio: DD 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Discs: Dual Layer DVD9   Release Date: 12/07/2010
Amazon Product links: Big Bad Mama / Big Bad Mama II | Crazy Mama / The Lady in Red

As you may be able to tell from the above, there’s a lot to talk about with Shout! Factory’s latest issue of Roger Corman’s Cult Classics releases, a pair of women-on-the-run double features that boast some serious talent behind the scenes.  With names like Jonathan Demme, Lewis Teague, John Sayles and James Horner attached, these packages have legitimate interest beyond their considerable cult appeal.

Steve Carver’s Big Bad Mama follows a devoted mother trying to do the best she can by two troublesome daughters in the Depression-era Southwest.  Sick of the oppressive poverty of rural Texas, Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson in the title role) packs her daughters in an old clunker and heads out for the promised land – California.  On the way the family becomes sidetracked by a life of crime, hooks up with a pair of crooks (William Shatner, Tom Skerritt) and eventually bites off more than it can chew with a high profile kidnapping scheme.

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Avatar

December 2nd, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 2009   Company: 20th Century Fox   Runtime: 162′ / 171′ / 178′
Director: James Cameron   Writer: James Cameron   Cinematography: Mauro Fiore
Music: James Horner  Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver,
Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel Moore, Wes Studi
Disc company: 20th Century Fox   Video: 1080p 1.78:1    Audio: DTS-HD Master 5.1 English,
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish), Dolby Digital 2.0 English
(descriptive audio)    Subtitles: English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Disc: Dual Layer BD50   Release Date: 04/22/2010   Product link: Amazon.com

To say that I didn’t see Avatar when it was in its original theatrical run (or its more recent re-release) is an understatement – I’ve avoided it outright until today.  Of the billions upon billions of dollars it has reaped in ticket receipts and home video sales not a single penny is mine, something of which I remain quite pleased.  It’s not that I harbor a particular hatred for James Cameron, repulsed as I may have been by the melodrama of his Titanic.  It’s not that the idea of an epic special effects extravaganza didn’t appeal to me – it does.  It’s the cultural phenomenon of Avatar, the millions of people flocking to see it around the world and the hundreds of critics singing its praises, from which I wish to remain distant.

I imagine that, had I seen Avatar in the midst of that sensation, my opinion of it would have been contrarian by principle alone.  So I’ve waited.  Now, almost a year after its initial run began and with two home video releases behind it, it’s safe to say that whatever unjustified negativity the film’s success fostered within me has subsided, and I can finally be unbiased – or as unbiased as one can be about something so saturated as Avatar.  At least the cell phone cross-promotions seem to be over…

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Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

November 12th, 2010 | article by | 2 Comments »
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Year: 2010   Company: Universal Pictures,  Relativity Media   Runtime: 113′
Director: Edgar Wright   Writers: Edgar Write, Michael Bacall   Cinematography: Bill Pope
Music: Nigel Godrich  Cast: Michael Cera, Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons, Ellen Wong,
Kieren Culkin, Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Satya Bhabha,
Chris Evans,  Brandon Routh,  Mae Whitman,  Keita Saito,  Shota Saito,  Jason Schwartzman
Disc company: Universal   Video: 1080p 1.85:1    Audio: DTS-HD Master 5.1 English,
DTS 5.1 Surround French, DTS 5.1 Surround Spanish   Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Disc: Dual Layer BD50   Release Date: 11/09/2010   Product link: Amazon.com

That’s it.  I’m convinced.  So long as Edgar Wright is in the director’s chair the man can do no possible wrong.  From his inimitably bizarre BBC series Spaced to his ode to the old-school exploitation trailer Don’t and everywhere in between and beyond, the writer / director / producer continues to impress with his innate sense of comic timing and his genuinely innovative approach to the basics of film construction.  Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is undeniably his most ambitious work to date, an audacious blend of disparate genres and motifs that simply refuses to be categorized.  Those looking for an unbiased appraisal be warned, as where this film is concerned I am an impossible fan.

The story follows the eponymous Scott Pilgrim, the self-absorbed and insecure twenty-something bassist of indie rock outfit Sex Bob-Omb, as he hunts for self-worth in the mythical land of Toronto, Canada.  Still angsty over a tumultuous break-up with the headliner of a rival musical sensation, Scott flings himself into a superficial relationship with a 17-year-old Chinese school girl only to find a more mysterious personality rocketing about his subconscious on roller blades.  Things take a turn for the bizarre when Scott discovers that the girl of his dreams is not only more corporeal than he imagined, but seemingly available to boot.  Unfortunately she comes with some serious baggage – a league of seven evil exes whom our unlikely hero will have to defeat in mortal combat if he and his would-be girlfriend are to have a future.

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Wardat

November 12th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 1981   Runtime: 134′   Director: Ravikant Nagaich
Writers: Ravikant Nagaich, Ramesh Pant   Cinematography: H.G. Raju    Music: Bappi Lahiri
Cast: Mithun Chakraborty, Kajal Kiran, Shakti Kapoor, Jagdeep, Kalpana Iyer, Iftekhar

A mysterious evil scientific genius (in whose hunchbacked, jodhpur-wearing glory the audience will be allowed to bask only much later in the movie) is sending out swarms of locusts to destroy the Indian rice harvest. Then, he uses his favourite henchman Shakti Kapoor (Shakti Kapoor; no, I have no idea why the actor is alright with having the bad guy named after himself, but that’s not the first time I have seen this in a Bollywood film) to drown the food market in cheap, low quality rice that has been enriched with a drug that – on first impression – seems to make people just sort of horny (in a Bollywood way, obviously).

When Shakti’s not taking care of the rice business, he is killing the people the suspicious Indian government has commissioned to investigate the mysterious case of the atypical acting locusts. And, just because he’s a proactive kind of guy, Shakti is also setting up various murder attempts on that greatest of all Indian secret agents – Gopi (Mithun Chakraborty), also known as “Gun-Master G9″. As it turns out, Gopi’s so secret, his code name is even written on the side of his car. But while you can say less than pleasant things about Gopi’s knack for secrecy, you can’t fault the man’s talent for survival, or his talent for kicking people in the face, and so Shakti’s assassination attempts all come to nought.

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The Sexy Killer (1976)

November 10th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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If these crudely animated titles from Shaw Brothers don’t have you craving an old-school exploitation fix, nothing will. Sun Chung (Human Lanterns) directs this sleazy story of a nurse (Chen Ping, The Big Bad Sis) who takes violent shot-gun revenge against the drug lord (Wang Hsieh, The Super Inframan) responsible for the self-destruction of her sister.

You can read our review of the film here.


Psychomania

October 20th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 1973    Company: Benmar Productions,  Scotia-Barber   Runtime: 90′
Director: Don Sharp   Writers: Julian Zimet, Arnaud d’Usseau    Cinematography: Ted Moore
music: John Cameron    Cast: Nicky Henson, Mary Larkin, George Sanders, Jacki Webb, Ann Michelle
Disc company: Severin Films   Video: 16:9 progressive 1.78:1 / 1.66:1    Audio: DD 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: Dual Layer DVD9   Release Date: 10/26/2010   Product link: Amazon.com
Reviewed from a screener provided by Severin Films, LLC

This occult action mish-mash arrived on US screens as The Death Wheelers, courtesy of a British film industry reeling from the absence of outside investment.  As with so many of the z-budget independents coming out of Britain at the time (Peter Newbrook’s production of Crucible of Terror and Cornel Wilde’s No Blade of Grass come to mind), the names involved are often well known.

Director Don Sharp (Curse of the Fly, The Brides of Fu Manchu) was a well-established genre regular on his way to a successful career in television and writers Julian Zimet (Crack in the World) and Arnaud d’Usseau (Horror Express) were no strangers either.  The cast is likewise filled with familiar names – television and theater actor Nicky Henson (Syriana) plays the leader of a suicidal band of social miscreants while George Sanders (Village of the Damned, The Picture of Dorian Gray) spends his final role playing with magic toads and reading from the not-so-good book.  Even stunt coordinator Gerry Crampton and stunt man Rocky Taylor, both mainstays of the James Bond franchise, are recognizable.

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King of Snake

September 4th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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film rating:
a.k.a. Daai Yi Wong, Daai Se Wong
(lit. Big Snake King)
company: ??
year: 1982
runtime: 88′
director: Chui Yuk-Lung
cast: Tarcy Su, Leung Sau-Geun,
Ng Fung, Danny Lee,
Paul Chang Chung, Chow Shui-Fong,
David Tong Wai, Unknown Taiwanese Actor (1)
writers: Yiu Hing-Hong
and Ng Man-Leung
special effects director: Chujio Shintaro
cinematographer: Liao Wan-Wen
Not available on home video

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more.  Next week things will be different – honest! But every misguided quest must have an end, and the finale to my impromptu monster-palooza is a real snooze.

1982’s grammatically impaired King of Snake is perhaps best known for being purchased by Joseph Lai’s IFD Film and Arts and manipulated by Hong Kong schlock extraordinaire Godfrey Ho into the 1988 oddity Thunder of Gigantic Serpent. That film follows French super-soldier Ted Fast as he hunts down balding white villain Solomon while a girl’s giant pet snake runs amok. King of Snake doesn’t gain much from the exclusion of Ho’s material, and instead offers viewers twice the boring story stuff and half the absurd fun.

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Centurion

September 3rd, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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company: Celedor Films
year: 2010
runtime: 98′
director: Neil Marshall
cast: Michael Fassbender, Olga Kurylenko,
Dominic West, Liam Cunningham,
David Morissey, Imogen Poots
writer: Neil Marshall
cinematography: Sam McCurdy
music: Ilan Eshkeri
Pre-order this film from Amazon.com:
Blu-ray | DVD

It’s the year 117. The Roman conquest of Britain is going rather badly. Rome has been forced to a standstill by the Pictish tribes under their king Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen), because her military isn’t able to adapt to the guerrilla fighting techniques of her enemy. In a desperate last attempt at winning the war and saving his position, governor Agricola (Paul Freeman) decides to send the 9th legion under general Virilus (Dominic West) north to find and kill the Pictish king.

The only additional help Agricola gives Virilus is the female, tongue-less tracker Etain (Olga Kurylenko). This turns out to be a costly mistake. Etain leads the legion into a trap, and so its first contact with the enemy remains its last. Most of the men are slaughtered, Virilus captured and only a handful of Romans (like Liam Cunningham and Micky from Doctor Who – yes, we are in the usual “all Romans spoke with various UK accents” territory here) escape with their lives. Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender), who had just escaped Pictish captivity, decides to lead the survivors into the Pictish camp to free their general.

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Black Samson

August 6th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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company: Omni Pictures
year: 1974
runtime: 89′
director: Charles Bail
cast: Rockne Tarkington, William Smith,
Carol Speed, Michael Payne,
Connie Strickland
writer: Warren Hamilton Jr.
cinematography: Henning Schellerup
music: Allen Toussaint
Order this film from Amazon.com

Samson (Rockne Tarkington) has made quite a life for himself – he owns a well-loved, permanently overcrowded strip bar, has a big stick to hit people with, a (probably doped up to the gills) lion lying around on the bar’s counter and is very much in love with his girlfriend Leslie (Carol Speed) who just happens to have the biggest afro I’ve ever seen.

Samson deserves all that, too, because he is a deeply righteous man who lets the local elderly alcoholic spend the night in his bar, and helps drug addicts clean up their act. Well, after he has threatened them with his stick. He’s also the man responsible for keeping his part of town clean from two larger criminal organizations.

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The Inglorious Bastards

July 25th, 2010 | article by | 2 Comments »
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a.k.a. Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato
film rating:
disc rating:
company: Films Concorde
year: 1978
runtime: 99′
director: Enzo G. Castellari
cast: Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson,
Peter Hooten, Michael Pergolani
disc company: Severin Films
release date: July 28, 2009
retail price: $34.95
disc info: Region Free / Dual Layer BD50
video: 1080p / color / 1.83:1
subtitles: English [incidental dialogue only]
audio: English [Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0]
Order this disc from Amazon.com
reviewed from a screener provided
by Severin Films LLC

A motley band of five Allied soldiers on their way to court martials and executions for a variety of offenses (from killing fellow officers to desertion to using military property to conduct a long distance relationship) are loosed into Nazi-occupied France circa 1944 after their convoy is ambushed.  With certain death facing them from either side the group decides to head for neutral Switzerland until the war is over.  But they get into things way over their heads when they accidentally kill a bunch of Allies on a top-secret mission to confiscate the experimental guidance system for a new V2 rocket…

I wasn’t overly infatuated with this Enzo G. Castellari (High Crime, The Last Shark) actioner when I first saw it [courtesy of Severin Films' 3 disc DVD release from last year], but I have to admit that it has grown on me since.  As far as pulp escapisms about cadres of no-good punks leaving their bullet-riddled marks on fascist occupational forces go, it actually works quite well.

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Eagles Over London

July 24th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. Battle Squadron / La Battaglia D’inghilterra
film rating:
disc rating:
company: Fida Cinematografica
year: 1969
runtime: 112′
director: Enzo G. Castellari
cast: Frederick Stafford, Van Johnson,
Francisco Rabal, Ida Galli, Luigi Pistilli
disc company: Severin Films
retail price: $34.95
release date: October 13, 2009
disc details: Region A / Single Layer BD25
video: 1080p HD
audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
subtitles: none
Order this film from Amazon.com
reviewed from a screener provided
by Severin Films LLC

In 1940 the Nazi army attempts an insidious plot (can a Nazi plot ever be anything other than insidious?). A command of German soldiers, dressed as Englishmen with papers stolen from the recently dead, are to infiltrate England and sabotage a cutting-edge radar system that has been put into operation there. It’s up to the suspicious Captain Stevens (Frederick Stafford, Werewolf Woman) and his unwilling ally Air Marshall Thompson (the very American Van Johnson, Brigadoon), with whose mistress Stevens is having an affair, to foil the plot before it’s too late, and the full force of the Luftwaffe is amassed against them.

From the moment the leader of the German saboteurs (Luigi Pistilli, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly) angrily demands that his comrades speak English, not German, audiences know just what sort of war film they’re in for.  Pistilli’s order even makes it to the Nazi high command, where the generals inexplicably speak English as well!  The Longest Day this certainly isn’t, but Enzo G. Castellari’s (The Inglorious Bastards) war-epic-cum-pulp-espionage-thriller is no less fun for its brainlessness.

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Inception

July 21st, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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film rating:
company: Warner Bros.,
Legendary Pictures and Syncopy
year: 2010
runtime: 148′
director: Christopher Nolan
cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao,
Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy,
Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard
writer: Christopher Nolan
cinematography: Wally Pfister
music: Hans Zimmer
Out in wide release now

If one were looking for proof positive that the Hollywood system is still capable of producing compelling, original work there could be no better example than Christopher Nolan’s refreshing piece of blockbuster filmmaking Inception, which has arrived just in time to save multiplexers from a seemingly endless parade of knock-offs, remakes, reboots and franchise sequels. Inception is a rarity among contemporary big budget fare – a science fiction thriller that deals in big ideas rather than laser blasts and catch phrases, with a strong emotional core to bind everything together.

The big science fiction concept at the heart Inception is a machine that allows its users to plug into the dreams of others, and around which arises a new kind of criminal, dream thieves who construct controlled dreamscapes that allow their targets’ subconscious to manifest in more or less predictable ways. The story follows the best of these, a fugitive named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who uses his personal proficiency with the technology to commit industrial espionage for high-end clientele.

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Deathsport / BattleTruck double feature

July 14th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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Deathsport
company: New World Pictures
year: 1978
runtime: 82′
director: Allan Arkush,
Nicholas Niciphor and Roger Corman
cast: David Carradine, Claudia Jennings,
Richard Lynch, David McLean
writer: Nicholas Niciophor,
Frances Doel and Donald Stewart
photography: Gary Graver
music: Andy Stein
BattleTruck
company: Battletruck Films, Ltd.
year: 1982
runtime: 91′
director: Harley Cokeliss
cast: Michael Beck, Annie McEnroe,
James Wainwright, Bruno Lawrence,
John Ratzenberger, John Bach
writer: Margaret Abrams, Irving Austin,
John Beech and Harley Cokeliss
photography: Chris Menges
music: Kevin Peek

The Deathsport / BattleTruck double feature is due out on August 3rd, and can currently be pre-ordered at considerable savings through Amazon.com

The first of Shout! Factory’s Roger Corman’s Cult Classics double feature DVDs brings together two wildly disparate but thematically complementary New World catalog titles – 1978’s Deathsport, roughly inspired by the earlier Death Race 2000, and 1982’s BattleTruck, an independent production from New Zealand distributed in the United States by Corman’s company. While the former was made available on DVD in 2000, the latter here makes its domestic digital debut.

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Mision Suicida

July 9th, 2010 | article by | 2 Comments »
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company: Puerto Mexico Films
year: 1973
runtime: 78′
director: Federico Curiel
cast: El Santo, Lorena Velazquez,
Elsa Cardenas, Dagoberto Rodriguez,
Roxana Bellini
writer: Fernando Oses
cinematography: Augustin Jimenez
music: Guustavo C. Carrion
Order this film from Amazon.com

Mexico City, during the Cold War. A Soviet spy ring – as we later learn under the leadership of Nazis with fitting names like Otto and Elke – kidnaps the Nazi war criminal and expert in brainwashing techniques Doctor Müller (Juan Gallardo). They need him to prepare the unsuspecting women populating their secret spy training camp in Santo Domingo for their real work. These women, you see, think they are just training (for who knows what?) at a very special gym that just happens to have a lot of swastikas in some of its rooms. In truth, they are meant to be the Soviet Union’s new elite spies who are supposed to start an awesome series of sabotage missions in the USA in the near future. They just need to be convinced, and that’s where Müller will fit in.

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